Operation: GEMINI
by M306117
Summary: Stranded, the crew of Alpha 86 band together with remnants, outcasts and deserters to tackle an oppressive regime.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland . 1208 Hours, May 05, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

A sharp whining and a dull throbbing greeted Spartan Hudson when he came to, the interior of Alpha 86 blurry and out of focus to his eyes. He blinked a few times to sharpen the image up and bring everything back into view, noting the troop bay was listing at an odd angle and slowly filling with smoke from an electrical fire that had broken out.

Opposite him was the inert form of Hospital Corpsman Second Class Fitzgerald, the odd angle of his neck telling Hudson the team's only combat medic was dead without him needing to check the myriad of warnings flashing up on his HUD as the suit detected he was conscious. They were telling him both pilots were dead as well, along with five of the eight engineers and scientists he and a team of four, now three Marines, were escorting on an expedition to retrieve helpful medical samples.

The survivors were alive but knocked out, their neural laces relaying to the Spartan the only injuries they had were some broken bones. His team were slightly luckier with only one, Staff Sergeant Jex, sporting a serious injury in the form of cracked ribs. Staff Sergeants Archer and Williams both appeared unharmed outside of being knocked out.

Hudson groaned and flexed his muscles, checking he himself was fine and releasing the restraints keeping him in place when everything checked out. Aside from a headache that was slowly going away, he was in perfect health and ready for combat. He stood and reached for his weapon, an MA5K carbine, hefting the reassuring weight and shape of it as he moved aft to the rear hatch.

It was open and led out onto a churned patch of dirt and rocks that had cradled the Pelican as it crashed, the overhanging tail of the dropship almost touching the ground beneath it to create an artificial cave with an opening barely big enough for Hudson to crawl through on his stomach.

When he emerged out the other end and stood up, he saw the landscape of what had once been the State of Maryland, now a desolate desert filled with the ruins of the old world scattered around like forlorn islands in a sea of despair with a harsh sun shining down on everything. He turned around and looked at Alpha 86, noting the starboard engine was little more than a mangled mess after its bout with a missile and the port aft nacelle was similarly missing with just scorched metal and a tangle of pipes and wires being all that remained.

The rest of the Pelican was more or less intact, just sitting at the end of a trail it dug for itself, nose high and listing to one side and making no other noise than the ticking of cooling metal. Hudson scrunched his mouth to the side in deep thought as he took this in, idly ruminating on the fact it would make getting home a whole lot more difficult without considering any damage to the dropship's precious Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine, a piece of machinery far beyond the understanding of anybody still alive on the crew.

A clattering of scattered items being kicked inside the Pelican preceded the appearance of Archer by just a few seconds, the sharpshooter hefting her sniper rifle as she scurried out through the same hole Hudson had crawled through, her smaller and less bulky frame allowing her a grace not afforded to the Spartan.

'How bad?' she asked.

'Not good,' Hudson said. 'Not good at all.'

He jutted his chin at the damage, Archer uttering a faint curse when she saw it.

'Yep,' Hudson said. 'My thoughts exactly.'

'What brought us down?' Archer asked as she took a few steps closer to the broken engine.

'No idea,' Hudson said. 'Could be an old air defence launcher that flagged us as hostile, could be some old robot doing the same, or it could be some jackass with a missile launcher feeling brave or lucky or dumb. Result's the same. Us stuck.'

Archer swore again.

The Spartan nodded as Jex emerged from the wreckage, gingerly holding his broken ribs with one hand as the other cradled his head, greeting the news of a destroyed engine with much the same profanity as Archer.

'Fitz is dead,' he said once the swearing stopped.

'I know,' Hudson said. 'Pilots too, plus more than half the civvies.'

'Well this mission's gone to shit pretty damn quick,' Jex said, idly booting a stone with his boot. 'What, half an hour in and already stuck?'

'Quicker than the previous crew,' Archer said.

'That's supposed to be comforting how...?'

Archer shrugged as Williams appeared, the last member of the security team responding much like the others before her to the news of their situation, with Hudson going 'Yeah,' a moment before issuing his orders to the team as they milled about.

'Jex, Williams, check on the rest of the team and take stock of our supplies,' he began. 'Food, meds, ammo, whatever. Make sure we haven't lost anything important and if we have, I want to know what it is. Archer, find somewhere up high and give us some cover. We still don't know what brought us down. If it's mobile, I want some warning before it gets here.

'I'll establish a basic perimeter at one hundred metres, get a feel for the likely approaches, and try and spot any gear that we lost. All good?'

'Sure thing, skipper,' Jex said. 'Guess we'll save the 'getting home' plan for later, eh?'

'Yeah,' Hudson said.

The three Marines nodded and dispersed, Archer climbing the nearest rock that offered good, clean sightlines for the surrounding area while Jex and Williams ducked back into the Pelican, all three of them strange looking in their armour. Hudson was used to seeing them in their typical Marine BDUs, not the ODST bodysuits warranted by the mission particulars, and the Spartan was taking a little while to adjust though, privately, he was pleased given the superior defensive capabilities the fully enclosed suits had over the standard combat armour of the Marine Corps.

They still weren't anywhere close to what Hudson could survive in his GEN2 MJOLNIR armour but that came at a cost of weighing close to half a metric ton, limiting where he could go. If they had to fight in or explore any decrepit buildings, he would be staying outside lest he fall through a rotten floor and wind up in the basement, buried beneath a few tonnes of rubble his team couldn't shift.

Hudson pushed the thought from his mind as his feet trod a path of the baked dirt and scorched earth that was once Maryland, eyes tracking from side to side in search of threats or objects of interest to him or the crew. Crash or no, they still had orders to carry out but he doubted he'd find anything in this barren wasteland, though hope sprang eternal.

' _Skip, got eyes on maybe six figures coming in from the west, range approx one mike,_ ' Archer warned over the radio. ' _Rate of advance appears to be three miles an hour. They're taking it slow and cautious.'_

'Acknowledged,' Hudson said as he orientated himself in the rough direction of the approaching party, noting with some mild worry it was the same direction the missile had come from. Could they be the ones who brought them down? Or were they simply in the vicinity and coming to investigate and lend aid? 'Can you make out any ID?'

' _Negative. Still too far away for that, but they're walking slow and larger than your regular human so either they have power armour on or they're mutants.'_

'Weapons?'

' _Can't tell. Maybe heavily loaded judging by how slow they're going but that could be caution as well.'_

'Very well,' Hudson said. 'Keep an eye out. Jex, Williams, what's the word on the inside?'

' _Nothing bad, skipper_ ,' Jex radioed. ' _We lost less than I thought we had. No major arms or munitions are missing, just flung about the blood tray.'_

'Good. Load up and come out. We've got six unknowns coming in, intent and armament unknown. Jex, assume an overwatch position on the Pelican, and Williams, punch out one-fifty metres west and fifty metres south of the crash site in a flanking position. I'll make contact once they close to a hundred metres.

'If they're hostiles, everyone open fire and smother them. If not, regroup on me and we'll go from there. Good?'

' _Good_ ,' the rest of the team said.

Hudson turned and watched as his team went about their tasks, Williams grabbing a dust coloured blanket to use as cover wherever she might wind up and Jex taking a DMR with him as he climbed the same rock as Archer, stopping halfway up the craggy surface to provide additional sniper support as the lone Spartan began jogging to his own location, wondering just who might be coming their way to greet the recently crashed Pelican.

Friend, or foe?


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland . 1245 Hours, May 05, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The six figures grew closer with every minute, each step they took bringing them more into focus for Archer to begin discerning details like the fact they weren't mutants but people dressed in power armour, and then that it was a design similar but not identical to the ones they had on file, and that one of them was hefting a missile launcher of some description.

The others carried either rifles or Gatling style weapons with multiple barrels and large drums for ammunition. Again, the designs weren't wholly consistent with what the previous crew had seen but close enough to guess their intended function. If Hudson had to guess, and without any solid intelligence he had to, he would have said the six people walking towards him were members of a technologically advanced faction, or were extremely rich to have acquired not one but six of the venerable suits of armour.

He knew from his briefing packet that there were two groups in this wasteland with ready access to power armour and the weaponry likely to down a Pelican. The first was the Brotherhood, a supposedly benign if somewhat secretive organisation dedicated to preserving technology for humanity's future, and the second was the Enclave, the remnants of the US government who held xenophobic views of anything and everything born with mutant genes. Both apparently had bases of power in the region but nothing quite this far out.

Had either of them shot down Alpha 86? Did either of them have reason to do so? It was, after all, an aircraft of unknown and advanced design but a 'shoot first, ask later' mindset was unlikely for soldiers of their alleged calibre. A friendly fire mistake might be plausible but doubtful.

All Hudson knew for sure was that someone or something had shot down his team. It might be these six figures heading his way, and it might not. How they greeted him would answer his question.

He took a knee behind a rock worn smooth by centuries of wind and sand, watching a feed from Archer's scope of the six unknowns as they kept up their slow and steady approach and brought themselves in greater and greater detail. The Spartan noted their armour design wasn't too dissimilar to that of the T-45d suit his briefing said the Brotherhood wore, just a little thicker and more rounded in places.

' _Think they're Brotherhood?_ ' Jex asked from his perch.

'Maybe,' Hudson said. 'We're not all that far from their main base of operations, not enough that a long range patrol is out of the question. But, it could be the Enclave or it could be another group entirely. The Brotherhood weren't the only one stranded with armour after the bombs fell, and there's probably no shortage of suits just waiting to be found out there.

'Whoever they are, stay sharp.'

Three green lights winked back at him, and for a moment, Hudson lamented that there had once been four. Fitz had been a valued member of the team, patching them all up no shortage of times in combat or raising morale with a bad joke or pun, or just mocking himself in some way to make everyone around him laugh. Hudson shook his head as Archer called out the unknowns were half a mile away and beginning to drift apart. He saw on the feed as the six of them broke up into pairs, those with the heavier weapons taking the flanks to cover their comrades with small arms as they maintained speed and course towards the crash site.

He tasked Archer with tracking the team with the missile launcher and Jex to do the same with those carrying miniguns, leaving him and Williams to deal with those in the centre. A small fibre optic probe replaced the eye in the sky provided by Archer's sniper rifle, trading clarity and elevation for fuzziness and interference from rocks and dips in the ground, but it was better than having no eyes on the target at all.

Hudson wished they had a drone orbiting them, relaying a constant stream of the area to everyone's HUD and providing them a decisive tactical advantage, but they weren't supposed to need one. A simple retrieval mission, their briefing officer had said. Low chance of being engaged in direct combat. The Spartan snorted, knowing all too well how plans made in an office panned out in the real world.

Instead, he had to rely on the reports from his two snipers as to what was happening and form a mental image of the tactical plot.

The three pairs were spread out on a line roughly a hundred metres long, those on the flanks slightly leading the two in the middle, all of them set to pass by Alpha 86's crash site in approximately ten minutes. The terrain was flat for the most part with random outcroppings of rocks appearing here and there, ranging in size from knee high to towering monstrosities higher than a house like the one Archer and Jex were perched on, with a very clear channel gouged through it all by the Pelican as it came down. Pieces of hull were scattered all along the stretch of disturbed land, maybe even some remains of the engines.

Once they closed to two-hundred metres, the armoured figures slowed even further, Archer relaying they had the Brotherhood of Steel's emblem emblazoned on their chest but that didn't mean anything. There was no way of knowing if this was even the same world the previous crew had visited, or if dramatic changes had occurred in the time since their last interaction. He still had to play it safe and assess their stance towards him before going any further.

Hudson waited for them to get roughly halfway between himself and Williams before revealing himself, just standing up in full view of the Brotherhood soldiers with his rifle somewhere between fully raised and lowered, signalling he wasn't looking for a fight but showing he was ready to engage in one should the need arrive.

'Identify,' he said to the two soldiers, making them both stop dead in their tracks. He saw in his peripheral vision the other pairs stopped as well and trained their weapons on him, and through three different windows on his HUD that his team had taken aim at their own targets. The good news was that his team had the drop on the six soldiers. The bad news was that he stood on the wrong end of too many guns, some of which just might be powerful enough to punch through his shields and kill him.

'You first,' one of the Brotherhood soldiers said gruffly, jerking his own weapon partway up into the firing position, his partner doing the same.

'Spartan Hudson,' the MJOLNIR clad figure began. 'United Nations Space Command, Spartan Branch.'

'The hell is that?' the other soldier said. 'Space Command. You pre-war?'

'Not remotely,' Hudson said. 'Now, who are-'

'You belong to that ship we saw flying overhead a while back, the one that crashed hereabouts?'

'Yes,' Hudson said. 'Who-'

The rest was cut off by a ruby red beam lancing out from the muzzle of the second soldier's rifle, travelling the small distance between him and Hudson in no time flat to strike his shields and make them glow, as his partner raised a more conventional firearm into position against the Spartan in apparent slow motion, a sensation Captain O'Day had called Spartan Time kicking in as adrenaline surged into Hudson's system, training and experience kicking him into gear.

His own weapon was snapped straight into a firing position and centred on the owner of the laser rifle, the more immediate threat of the duo given his partner carried a small calibre assault rifle, with a measured pull of the trigger sending five rounds down the barrel on a pillar of fire that erupted from the MA5K's muzzle to strike the Brotherhood soldier square in the chest who jerked and staggered back from the precise impacts, laser rifle dropping from his hands to land on the ground.

Even as the blocky weapon began its downward journey, Hudson was spinning on his heel towards the next target, ignoring the assault rifle owner again for Williams to deal with in favour of the two soldiers Jex was targeting and leaving Archer to deal with her two alone. Again, he brought his carbine into a firing position and carried out a measured and precise pull of the trigger to expend another five rounds at the armoured hostiles, everything appearing to run in absolute slow motion to his enhanced reflexes, his enhanced senses missing very little.

Hudson could see the glint of sunlight on each of the brass casings as they flew away from his weapon, the churned dirt flying high into the air as the Brotherhood soldier span about to bring his minigun to bear on the Spartan, the whine of powerful electric motors spinning up to speed, and the clunking of heavy armour as its wearer tried to move quickly in a suit designed for raw strength over speed and agility.

Twin cracks of thunder pealed over everyone as Archer eliminated her targets, the two soldiers she had responsibility for simply losing their heads in a puff of red vapour and pulverised bone as the 14.5mm round tore through everything at Mach 4.5. Then, as one, every gun the UNSC troops held was directed at the last soldier desperately trying to bring the barrels of their minigun to bear on Hudson, still the only one visible, only to be cut down as the first couple of rounds cleared the chambers, shooting nothing but dirt.

Silence fell with the last body, a mournful howl of wind underscoring the deaths that had occurred as though compelled by a cliché nature with Hudson idly wondering if the sun would suddenly break through the overcast clouds to illuminate the victors as they stood, alive, after the battle, but no. The weather stayed overcast and patchy, and the wind remained a mournful howl and the only thing making a noise until Archer broke it.

' _Guess that answers that_ ,' she said over TEAMCOM. ' _The Brotherhood ain't our friends.'_

' _Fine by me_ ,' Jex said. ' _We can move quicker without anyone else.'_

'But we still need a means of fixing the Pelican,' Hudson pointed out, jerking his thumb at the wreckage lying beneath the staff sergeant's position. 'And the Brotherhood was the most likely group to have the means of doing so.'

' _But not the only one_ ,' Jex countered. ' _Still got the NCR and New Vegas to consider.'_

'Who are how far away?'

There was a moment's pause before Jex said, ' _Point_.'

Hudson shook his head and made for the nearest dead Brotherhood soldier, noting his handiwork was as good as ever with all five rounds, fired from a carbine weapon, right in the ten ring. Captain O'Day would have been proud to see her hard work had paid off. Well, maybe not proud but less inclined to verbally murder him for some infraction, real or imagined, as she was prone to during training.

He patted down the soldier he had killed, coming away with a few samples of the radiation treating drugs they were supposed to retrieve, RadAway and Rad-X, plus a slew of other assorted medical items the scientists might be interested in with Williams adding to the haul herself, resulting in seven packs of RadAway and nine bottles of Rad-X, more than enough for the eggheads to work with.

Then came the difficult part of the mission.

Alpha 86 was still out of commission, perhaps permanently so and never to see UNSC skies again, leaving her crew stranded in wholly the wrong universe than what they should be in with supplies and samples that could make lives back home infinitely better and revolutionise radiation treatment as they knew it. With enough time and resources, it could be brought back to life but Hudson was dubious as to the qualities of the available materials to hand. Sure, they might be high quality here but the UNSC's tolerances were even greater, an advantage distinctive of superior technology.

Could they return home if some of the parts, vital ones, weren't operating at their optimum?

Hudson didn't want to dwell on the outcome if the answer was no, stowing everything into his rucksack for transport to occupy his mind as Williams ambled over to him, the fallen soldier's laser rifle in one hand and her carbine in the other. They made for an interesting contrast, the Brotherhood's rifle being a far blockier and worn affair next to the UNSC's cut down assault rifle, designed for minimal snagging and weight while retaining as much stopping power as possible.

The pair took stock of each other's spoils of war and began heading back to Alpha 86 where Jex and Archer were waiting, still nestled in their perches with rifles trained outwards for approaching threats, stopping and dropping into a crouch when the steady beat of helicopter blades cut through the air.

The first thought that came into Hudson's mind was Vertibird, a tilt rotor aircraft that provided the only real semblance of air travel in the wastelands, and the second was to mentally chide himself for not expecting it but then, he was basing his expectations off the briefing packet handed to him by the ONI official that said nobody in or around the Capital Wasteland had access to any kind of aircraft while forgetting to keep reminding himself that was just one possible variation of the world. Alternate realities held the possibility for infinite differences, like a hostile Brotherhood of Steel who had air superiority.

What might take several hours to travel by foot could take mere minutes for an aircraft, and a long range patrol that shot down an unidentified machine could radio for air support while they investigated the wreckage, and Hudson could only theorise that eagerness on their part had caused the Brotherhood patrol to investigate before support arrived. Had hostile air support been in play, the battle might not have gone in the UNSC's favour.

He zeroed in on the source of the noise and saw a squat, low flying object rapidly approaching them from the east, Archer soon after relaying it sported cannons and missile launchers on the nose and maybe, maybe, a Brotherhood cog on the side.

'Get ready to meet them,' Hudson ordered as he strode for the nearest depression, crouching in it with his weapon pointed at the Vertibird. 'If this thing's friendly to the guys we just wasted, we're not gonna be getting a warm welcome. Archer, Jex, try your best to aim for the pilots. Me and Williams will try to distract it long enough for you to get a shot off.

'Open fire on my signal only, or if you get fired upon first.'

Green lights winked back at the Spartan as he watched the ever closing Vertibird draw even nearer, squinting against the bright patches of sun breaking through the clouds. He didn't like being attacked from the east when it was morning, or whichever direction the sun rose on planets before midday, preferring to be the one carrying out the attack because that was what he was trained for, both as a Marine officer and then a Spartan.

Being forced onto a defensive footing was contrary to his nature as an offensive weapon, especially when their luck had turned bad already with a fifty percent KIA rate barely an hour into a supposed milk run.

Hudson grimaced and checked there was a round chambered, visually confirming his weapon was ready to fire, then shouldered the carbine as the Vertibird closed to half a mile and slowed.

A few seconds later, it came within visual range of the dead Brotherhood soldiers and a few seconds after that, it opened fire.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1300 Hours, May 05, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The Vertibird opened fire on the defiladed troops, front cannons spewing a mixture of shells and red lasers that churned up and charred the ground respectively as the tilt wing machine performed a strafing run while troops in the passenger bay loosed off with mounted miniguns that didn't do anything other than hit open ground.

Hudson shied away on reflex as a flurry of rounds landed close by then recovered and returned fire, expending a thirty round magazine in a full auto blast at the retreating machine but without effect, the armour the Vertibird sported being too thick for his carbine to break through. The rest of his team was doing much the same, emptying their weapons to little effect.

All, that is, but Archer given the immense calibre of her sniper rifle, originally designed to defeat tank armour during the Second World War. She fired twice, missing the first time but striking the Vertibird the second time in its starboard engine. Smoke began billowing out almost instantly and the whole thing wobbled uncertainly, like it was going to plummet, but the aircraft remained airborne and returned fire.

A salvo of missiles erupted from the Vertibird and screamed towards Archer's position, and Jex's to a lesser extent, and Hudson just managed to scream at them to move before the missiles impacted. He brought up their biosigns on his HUD, relieved to see nothing alarming in the immediate aftermath of the multiple explosions, but Archer's signal suddenly flat lined without explanation. One second it read green, the next it was flashing an urgent red in his face as the suit detected a cessation of life.

He ordered Jex to check on the sniper then ducked down as the Vertibird came in for another swooping run, cannons blazing all the while, snapping back into a firing position the moment the ground around him fell still. His rounds impacted and did nothing, as did Williams' when she came out of cover to add to the firepower.

The Spartan reloaded with mechanical precision and speed as their airborne quarry began its laborious turn to get into an attack position, focusing on the damaged engine as it spewed smoke intermittently. He knew, mentally, that he was just wasting ammunition on the target. It was small, armoured and moving fast at a not so small distance while he was using a carbine firearm, a weapon not known for its impressive accuracy.

After all, it was a cut down and shortened version of a full size MA5 rifle, trading firepower and accuracy for lighter weight and a slimmer profile. If even a quarter of his rounds were making impact he was doing well, but seven or eight rounds against something in almost a full inch of steel, perhaps even military grade plating, his carbine wasn't going to cut it.

They had heavier weapons in Alpha 86, a Spartan Laser, but there was no telling what damage had been done to it in the crash. Military or not, rugged or not, laser weapons were more susceptible to being knocked around than their less advanced and more brutish cousins ballistic weapons. Hudson didn't want to have the weapon explode right next to his head because of a capacitor or regulator that had become knocked loose.

As the Vertibird came in for yet another attack, he began to wonder if the risk was worth it. They were down to just two Marines and one Spartan armed with carbines and a single DMR to face off against an armoured aircraft that held much bigger guns, never got close enough to the ground or a major geographical feature to be boarded, and was no doubt relaying the tactical situation back to base while calling up more reinforcements to tackle the grounded attackers.

Hudson began eying the distance between him and Alpha 86, the track the Vertibird was flying, and running the numbers. He'd be exposed for over five seconds, more if he tucked and rolled in a random pattern to throw off the pilot's aim, then be immobile as he crawled through the small gap that allowed access inside and again while charging up the Spartan Laser, something that ran contrary to his training.

If you remain motionless in a battle, you die.

His shields could take some punishment, so could the plating underneath, but how much? Would he just be torn apart by the cannons and lasers carried by the Vertibird as he stood his ground, powering up the anti-vehicle weapon? Or would he be fine, laughing as the shells bounced off and left him no worse for wear?

As it happened, he wouldn't get a chance to find out.

He watched as a streak of fire erupted from behind a cluster of rocks, a missile of some kind screaming up into the air towards the Vertibird on a near perfect collision course. The pilot saw it and banked hard to throw the missile off course, managing to avoid it by the skin of their teeth.

They weren't so lucky with the second one that appeared, coming from another hidden location to slam into the machine as it crabbed sideways and gut it. Fire and metal exploded out from the Vertibird as it seemed to hang in midair for a solitary second, trailing smoke and flames, then plummeted down to crash and explode again, a great mushroom cloud rising up from the wreckage as the twin roils of thunder from the two detonations echoed across the land.

Hudson fought the urge to stand and look, training telling him a third faction who may or may not be friendly was operating in the same area. He pointed his carbine at the spot where the second missile had come from, knowing Williams was doing the same with the other spot.

'Sound off,' a voice called out from behind Hudson, muted by distance and distorted, like it was coming from a tinny speaker. 'Anyone alive down there?'

The Spartan didn't answer, swinging his aim in the direction of the voice as he stayed crouched down behind his rock.

There was a minute pause where there was just silence, barring the crackle of fire coming from the Vertibird wreck. Then, as Hudson kept his gun up, a single figure rose from behind a cluster of rocks and walked closer to the battlefield, and Hudson saw they carried a missile launcher and wore a suit of power armour, what his briefing packet called the T-51b, painted in mottled and subdued colours to better blend in with the desert environment.

He didn't see any insignia anywhere, not from so far away at least, and while he was treating the person as a potential hostile, he didn't believe they were Brotherhood affiliated. After all, they had just shot down a valuable and hard to replace aircraft.

'Hello, below there!' the figure called out, waving down at the defiladed Spartan. 'Are you okay?'

Hudson still didn't answer.

'You can lower your gun,' the figure said. 'We're not here to hurt you.'

'Skipper?' Williams whispered over the COM. 'Orders?'

'Stand by,' Hudson whispered back.

Were they really friendly? Their actions so far said yes but this could all just be a ploy of some kind, a way of getting the UNSC personnel to lower their guard and make themselves vulnerable to attack. How many others were hidden around the edge of the battlefield, just ready and waiting to launch a salvo of missiles or unleash a barrage of bullets and lasers on the unsuspecting trio?

Hudson had to treat all unknowns with a certain degree of suspicion and paranoia, but how much? He knew almost nothing about this person, the only thing going in their favour being the fact they had shot down a hostile aircraft which, Hudson's paranoia told him, could have been a setup from the start to try and gain their trust.

Might they also be the ones who shot down Alpha 86?

Maybe, but that would require them to know the Pelican, which hailed from a parallel universe, was coming and they'd have to be precognitive to know that. The more likely explanation was that they and the Brotherhood troops were already in the area, perhaps as enemies and waging war against one another, and Alpha 86 happened to have the bad luck of appearing right in the middle of it all.

That raised the concern that if the Brotherhood of Steel, a group dedicated to protecting the people of the wastes, was fighting them then these weren't exactly nice people, only for Hudson to remind himself that the Brotherhood might not be quite so nice in this world and the person he was looking at might actually be a good guy fighting against a hostile organisation.

He lowered his rifle partway when that thought made itself known in his head, rising from a crouch to stand fully erect, both to show he wasn't treating the person as hostile and to show them who they were dealing with, a part of his mind screaming at him for presenting such a target for any snipers in the area.

No shots from a high powered rifle rang out though, and the power armoured figure started to make their way down to the Spartan, taking his change in posture as an invitation for further discourse. As they did, more shapes began to emerge around the rim from defiladed positions. Hudson counted thirty in total, some possessing the distinctive bulk of power armour and all carrying weapons, moving with the grace and confidence of veteran troops.

'You okay, bud?' the figure asked for the third time once they stood opposite the Spartan, missile launcher slung across their back as the others moved to form a loose perimeter around them, those with heavy weapons keeping watch on the horizon for any more airborne surprises. 'Any injuries?'

'Nothing major,' Hudson said. He waited a moment then asked, 'Who are you?'

'Sergeant Weston.' There was another pause before they asked, 'Who are you?'

'Spartan Hudson.'

Another bout of silence fell over the two as each scrutinised the other. Hudson could see the armour Weston wore was battered and bruised, evidence of years of hard use and abuse in harsh conditions, with some of the darker patches he had initially thought of as part of a camouflage pattern revealing themselves to be laser burns and plasma scoring, and barring a faint 98 on the chest the suit was devoid of any identifying markings. In fact, Hudson saw everyone surrounding him bore the number 98 on their armour in some form or another.

He turned back to Weston, unsure if it was a man or woman hidden behind the composite material of the T-51b. The helmet's speaker did a good job of muffling their voice but even so, there was a definite lightness to it all, suggesting a woman was standing before him but so too could a small man.

Weston shifted from foot to foot then held a hand out to the Spartan in greeting.

'Hello, Spartan Hudson,' Sergeant Weston said. 'And welcome to the State of Maryland.'

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 98. 2030 Hours, May 05, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

Archer was dead.

Hudson had known this the moment her signal went from green to red but protocol and decorum required him to physically make sure, finding her bent backwards over a large rock at the bottom of a previously covered pit, staring sightlessly up at the cloudy sky above until Williams and a few of Weston's troops had retrieved the sniper from her resting place.

A strange sense of foreboding filled Hudson as he and Jex watched Archer's body get hauled out of the hole. They were barely two hours into their mission and already half the Marines were dead, alongside the pilots and the most of the civilians. Even during the Human-Covenant War, Hudson had never lost so many people so quickly, and on a supposed milk run! If this was how the mission started, how would it end?

He worried about this all the way back to Weston's home, one of the many Vaults that littered America and the source of the mysterious 98 on the armour of those that served under the power armour wearing sergeant, the number emblazoned on the centre of the Vault's giant door in faded yellow letters.

A keen and ear splitting screech had sounded when the foot thick slab of metal was opened, accompanied by a wailing alarm and spray of sparks, revealing the clean but dim interior of the Vault's entrance where half a dozen armed guards stood waiting, tensing up at the sight of Hudson, Jex and Williams, and relaxing a little when Weston told them the Marines were okay to come in, the group trooping in one after another into a world a far cry from the desolation outside.

Once inside, those with injuries were tended to in the Vault's medical facility, a kindly old man checking each of the three engineers and Jex, prescribing painkillers and bandages for them all, and when they were seen to Weston came to escort everyone to the Vault's conference room where food and drink had been put on, and where a few Vault dwellers and wastelanders were already sat waiting.

Hudson and Weston remained standing whilst everyone else sat, neither of them out of their armour though they did take off their helmets, allowing them to see one another's faces. Beneath the rounded edges and thin visor of the T-51b was a hardscrabble woman sporting matted hair and dull hazel eyes, a small scar running through one eyebrow to create a noticeable chink. She glanced at Hudson, scrutinising his face, then nodded in greeting.

He nodded back as one of the Vault dwellers, a man of no more than forty but aged prematurely by heavy responsibilities, or just a poor diet, leaned forward with clasped hands to say, 'My name is Thomas Greer. I'm the Overseer of Vault 98, and I would like to start by expressing my condolences for your losses.'

'Thank you, sir,' Hudson said. 'What's being done with them?'

'They've been placed in cold storage for the moment,' Weston said. 'We didn't know what you wanted to do with them, so we're keeping them preserved until you make a decision.'

'Thank you,' Hudson said again. 'Once we know what our situation is, and if we can make it home, we'll let you know.'

Weston nodded. 'Of course.'

'Where is home, perchance?' Greer asked, eyes running up and down the armour of the Spartan and his two remaining Marines. 'Your suits don't look like any power armour system we've ever seen.'

'That's... _complicated_ ,' Hudson said after a moment. 'We're not from around here in one sense, but we are in another.'

He paused again, thinking how best to put their situation into words and guessing how these people might react, realising there was no good way of saying it outside of the truth, so he said it.

'We're from a parallel world,' he said. 'One where the Great War never happened and humanity spread beyond the stars. We arrived here by way of an experimental drive system based on alien technology, hoping to gain helpful medical supplies that could revolutionise radiation treatment in our home dimension. People from our world have travelled here before but only by accident. Ours was an intentional trip.'

Hudson felt all eyes in the room settle on him as he finished speaking, noting the incredulous looks on some of the faces, including Weston, but Greer seemed unfazed by the revelation. He just nodded sagely and steeped his fingers, looking over them at the Spartan.

'I see,' he said. 'That would explain plenty.'

'You seem surprisingly okay with this,' Jex said.

'I'm open minded,' Greer said. 'You have to be when you live in a world filled with such a diverse amount of life, many of which is sentient enough to hold a civil conversation with. The idea that there are worlds other than this isn't much of a stretch to believe in. Just because there's no proof doesn't make it any less possible.'

The staff sergeant nodded in agreement then winced as his broken ribs made themselves known, grimacing as one hand went to his midsection.

'You sure picked a hell of a time to come through, bud,' Weston said. 'We were running an op to try and stretch the Brotherhood's resources a little bit, maybe kill a few of their guys, when your bird came flying over.'

'You didn't shoot her down, did you?' Tracy, the Pelican's crew chief and sole surviving crew member, said in a surly tone, glowering at the sergeant so intensely it was a miracle she didn't keel over dead.

'No,' Weston said. 'By the time we saw it, it was already coming down. We just moved in on the crash site in the hopes of seeing who might have survived.'

'Good thing you did,' Hudson said. 'Otherwise, taking down that Vertibird would have been a bit of a problem.' He turned to Weston and added, 'Speaking of, how come you and the Brotherhood are at odds with one another? Our files say they're supposedly a good group...'

'When you saw them,' Weston said. 'Or your version was. Whichever. Ours? Not so much.'

'Tell me more.'

'Not now. It's a story for another day. Tomorrow, once you're all rested up and ready for it.'

For a brief moment, Hudson saw a mixture of emotions flicker onto her face, cracking the stoic and impassive facade for just a moment. He saw anger, betrayal, sorrow and frustration, plus a slew of other negative emotions, and guessed that Weston had some sort of personal history with the group, either as a disillusioned member or as someone who had lost a person most dear to the actions, or inactions, of the Brotherhood of Steel.

He almost requested that she start on her explanation now, feeling no need to recuperate despite the personal losses he had experienced today. Combat had a wonderful way of teaching a person how to lock down their grief for a short while, allowing them to focus on a battle at hand and keep others from dying, and it had happened to him, Jex and Williams so much it was almost, worryingly, second nature but as he scanned the table, he knew Weston was thinking more of the civilians.

None of them had seen combat in real life, just the edited videos from the news feeds on Waypoint, so going from zero experience to losing five close friends in the span of just a few short hours was harrowing. Each of them sported worn down and haunted expressions as they tried to process their grief in their own way.

They needed sleep, or time to think alone, and he figured that Weston's tale could wait for a few hours even though his own curiosity was piqued. Exactly how different was the Brotherhood of Steel?

 _That is a story for another day_ , Hudson thought to himself as the meeting came to a close. He donned his helmet and followed the others out, wondering just what Weston had to say.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 98. 0830 Hours, May 06, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

'I was in the Enclave,' Weston began. 'I don't know what you've heard of them, or if they were the same in your wasteland as they are in this one-'

'Remnants,' Hudson said. 'of the American government. They viewed themselves as superior to the people of the wastes, the only ones worthy enough to reclaim America, and tried to wipe out every living thing twice in a mass genocide.'

'Sounds about right,' Weston said. 'But, yeah, I was a member of them but don't think that's why I view the Brotherhood in such a dim light. I actually defected to serve under Elder Lyons just before the Battle of Adams Air Force Base because I didn't see eye to eye with the rest of the Enclave.'

She paused and searched for the right words, gazing into the middle distance as she wrapped her hands around a steaming mug of coffee. Around her were the UNSC personnel and the Vault representatives from last night, sitting in the same room as before on the same seats, the exception being Weston who was seated at the head of the table, devoid of her armour. Without it, she looked strange and a whole lot smaller than the T-51 let on.

'Well, I guess we _did_ on some things,' Weston said. 'I believed in their cause of rebuilding America again, to make it a better place for everyone living there, but we disagreed on how to go about it. You were right about the attempted genocide, Spartan. They did try that, on the Oil Rig about forty years ago and in DC very recently, trying to wipe the slate clean so they could take over again.

'That didn't sit right with me.'

'Why not?'Hudson asked.

'Because I'm the outlier,' Weston said. 'The anomaly, the random piece of data that came from nowhere, and because I made it a point to read a copy of the Constitution during my down time so I knew just what it was I was fighting for. The whole thing, barring the amendments added to it by the Enclave after the bombs dropped, particularly the Fourteenth Amendment. At least, before that got repealed shortly after the Enclave returned to the mainland.

'It says anyone born within the US is a citizen and cannot be denied life, liberty or property by the government of the state they live in, which is exactly what the Enclave was doing by trying to kill everyone, which struck a chord within me. A nation is not a place, but a people, and this nation was founded on the belief that all are equal regardless of race.

'Who are the Enclave to say that a ghoul or a super mutant or even just your average waster isn't a citizen because they don't have the right genetic profile? If this is still the United States of America, then they're all citizens of the country and have just as much right to life as anyone else.'

Her knuckles shone white for the briefest of moments, gripping the mug tightly as she spoke on a subject she was passionate about, then relaxed and carried on.

'I stuck it out for as long as I could, trying to find sympathetic ears for my belief or trying to change the direction we were going in, but I was alone in my plight and soon enough, I got the feeling my superiors were making plans to silence me somehow and rid themselves of a nuisance but by then, we'd come into contact with the Brotherhood and I saw an organisation who shared my vision of helping people, not killing them.'

'But the Brotherhood doesn't like mutants either,' Jex said.

There was a moment's pause then Weston said, 'Yeah,' in a quiet voice.

'They weren't perfect,' she added. 'But show me an institution that is and I'll show you a work of fiction. I'll bet the UNSC has its bad points, right?'

'Right,' Jex said.

'Right,' Weston said. 'But they were still a damn sight better than the Enclave when it came to protecting people, even if that same level of kindness wasn't extended to ghouls, though I figured they were more open to change than my previous employer.'

A humourless grin tugged at her features at that.

'I told them all I could about the crawler, its layout and defences and postings, what little I knew anyway, then sat and waited in the small cell they'd placed me in once I told them who I was, wondering if the next face I saw would be preceded by a set of keys, or a gun, once they decided on what they were going to do to me.

'As you might have guessed, they decided to keep me around and induct me into their ranks as a lowly initiate, giving me a chance to prove my worth and gain their trust, and to help them decipher the secrets of Enclave technology that stumped their Scribes. It wasn't perfect, but it was a whole hell of a lot better than the Enclave. For a while, at least.'

Weston paused again, a forlorn look on her face as she cast her mind's eye back however many months and years it had been since her time in the Brotherhood of Steel's Capital Wasteland chapter, and to the turning point that had made her attitude towards the knightly organisation sour like it had against the Enclave.

'It started with the death of Elder Lyons,' she said. 'and Sarah not long after when she took up the mantle of Elder. Unlike her father, who died in his sleep a few months after the Enclave's defeat, she died in battle though reports are a little thin on the ground, and a little contradictory even from the people who were there.'

She shrugged and added, 'Some say it was a raider hyped up on Psycho, others than it was a super mutant with a super sledge, or just an unlucky frag grenade. Me? I believe Bryan that it was a sniper who took her out.'

'Who?' Hudson asked.

'Bryan,' Weston said. 'He's the guy who came from Vault 101? You know, the Lone Wanderer?'

'Oh. We knew him as Liam.'

'Is he still around?' Williams said. 'Or did he die later on at some point, too?'

'No, he's alive,' Weston said. 'As far as I know, anyway. He settled down in 101 once it opened back up, marrying the Overseer and having a kid together, but the last anyone saw of him was a few months ago, heading west in a suit of T-45. Nobody knows where, or why, and it's not like I've been into DC recently to ask anyone.'

'A new quest, perhaps,' Hudson said.

'Perhaps,' Weston agreed. 'But after Sarah died, we went through a number of Elders, each somehow worse than their predecessor, until Arthur Maxson finally stepped up to the role when he was sixteen, a little over four years ago. At first, things seemed great because he brought the Outcasts back into the fold, bolstering our numbers, but then it wasn't.

'We near enough did a complete reversal, prioritising technology over protecting people and calling it saving them from themselves. Sure, Maxson kept a _few_ of Lyons' policies like recruiting outsiders and helping communities, but not as many as you'd think. Places had to provide some measure of payment for regular protection, like food or ammunition, and soon enough the Brotherhood were taking over the whole of DC and the surrounding region, which didn't go unnoticed by Three Dog, at least until he was taken off air...'

'Taken off how?' Williams asked.

'Nothing was ever proven,' Weston said. 'But rumour has it that some hardliners took exception to the way Three Dog was talking about the Brotherhood and decided to do something about it.'

Hudson blinked at that, liking what he was hearing less and less. First the denial of free protection to those who needed it, then asserting control of an entire region via subversive methods, and now denying the freedom of speech?

 _Provided the rumours are true_ , he reminded himself.

It was just Weston's side of the story and she hadn't been there. Maybe Three Dog had been killed by someone from his past, a wronged acquaintance maybe or some really crazy fan, but what about the part of making people pay for protection? Sure, payment for services rendered was understandable but denying it to people who couldn't afford it? The Brotherhood leadership had to be cold hearted bastards to allow that, and the soldiers who went out had to be even worse to tell some starving family that no, we won't save you from those ghouls because you can't afford it.

How many people, both young and old, had died as a result of their inaction? Worse, if the Brotherhood really did have majority control over the Capital Wasteland, could they pick and choose which towns got protection? It wouldn't be hard for them to silence a settlement that complained too much about their rulers. Just pull their protection and let the wastes reclaim the land. After two or three times of this, the rest would learn to shut their mouths and accept that the most complex thing they'd own would be a simple radio.

'Yeah,' Weston said as she looked at the Spartan, seeing something in his expression that told her what he was thinking. 'That was what I started thinking once I saw the way things were going.'

'Yeah,' Hudson said in agreement.

'They clamped down on mutants even more,' Weston went on. 'Underworld got hit pretty hard by their 'reclamations' of advanced technology, the few who tried to stop what was essentially an armed incursion getting blasted to pieces, and left undefended given the Brotherhood practically stole Cerberus. Talon Company had a field day with that one. Actually, it was one of their last hurrahs before the Paladins came crashing down on them. Then they started in on Rivet City...'

She went on, again stating it was something she had heard from a friend of a friend, that some of the higher ups in the Brotherhood, Maxson included, went to the beached aircraft carrier with slightly different intentions regarding any technology the ship held, namely its reactor that provided power to the citizens of the Capital Wasteland's biggest and most prosperous settlement. For what, she didn't know. It was a rumour that had emerged _after_ her departure from the organisation and Weston had no definite way to confirm or deny the Brotherhood had stolen the reactor, or if it was even Rivet City they were stealing from.

More than one ship with a reactor had gotten beached along the Anacostia River, some of them aircraft carriers like Rivet City, so who was to say the Brotherhood hadn't sized upon the chance to strip these wrecks and avoid angering a powerful economic centre and scientific research facility?

Weston went quiet again and stared into the middle distance, her coffee cold and unforgotten in her hands, and everyone around her waited for her to continue.

'They were becoming a shadowy copy of the Enclave,' she finally said. 'Or an echo, not quite the same as but more or less recognisable as the original, asserting their control over everyone using technology and denying a person protection because they didn't have the right genetic profile. I'd seen it before, only this time there wasn't anyone to stop them because they'd killed everyone who might've posed a threat, so I knew things could only grow worse.'

'So you decided to fight against them,' Hudson said, guessing the rest.

Weston nodded. 'Just me at first, then I was joined by a few others who'd had enough. Regular wastelanders, ex-mercs put out of a job, even a few ghouls to rub salt in the Brotherhood's wounds, and a few Knights and Paladins who felt betrayed by Maxson's abandoning of Lyons' ideals and philosophy. We were a ragtag bunch, operating out of whatever hole we could find that was big enough to hold us all and provide some measure of protection.'

'Until we stumbled across them,' Greer said. 'One of our scouting parties found them, or more accurately was saved from a bunch of super mutants by them, and we offered everyone shelter as a means of saying thank you. Once we heard their story, we felt compelled to help in whatever way we could.'

'Really?'Jex said. 'And why would you do that?'

'These Vaults were a continuation of America,' Greer said. 'Our ancestors were American citizens, and so is every person born within these walls. When Sergeant Weston explained to me what two organisations with ties to the pre-war government, the _American_ government, were doing, I knew I couldn't just stand by and do nothing. The entire Vault pledged their support to her cause.'

'Okay, then.'

'So what's the plan?' Hudson asked. 'Long term. Are you trying to bring the Brotherhood down, or are you just weakening them as much as possible so somebody else can assert their dominance?'

'A bit of both,' Weston said. 'There's too few of us, even with the Vault behind us, to really tackle the Brotherhood head on so we go at them sideways, guerrilla warfare as much as possible. If we can bring them down doing that, great. We'll step in and try to manage the mess we leave behind as much as possible, or admit our failings and try to mitigate the damage we caused. If we can't, then yeah, we'll try to weaken them enough so that someone else can step in and muscle them out.'

'And if they're just as bad, if not worse?'

'We start the process up all over again.'

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 98. 1017 Hours, May 06, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The UNSC troops retired to an empty common room once Weston finished her tale, the former Brotherhood/Enclave soldier excusing herself to carry out some maintenance on her suit of armour when an air of awkwardness descended upon the room, the Vault officials making similar excuses about overseeing their areas of responsibilities, leaving Hudson and the troops under him free to do as they pleased.

He was leaning against the grey concrete wall of the common room, everybody else sprawled on the sofas and chairs that filled it, as they mulled over what Weston had said about the Brotherhood of Steel.

On the one hand, it did paint them as a nasty group who justified their actions as being necessary to protect humanity from repeating the mistakes of the past and gave themselves plausible deniability when something bad happened to someone objecting to what they did and how, but on the other, it was just one person's word to go on, and further muddying the issue was the fact Weston had once considered the Brotherhood of Steel a hostile faction given her previous allegiance to the Enclave.

Lingering resentment couldn't be reliably ruled out, even on a subconscious level, biasing her view towards the group and their actions in a negative light. If the rumours she had told them were true, then the troops under Maxson were little more than glorified raiders with a good public image. If they weren't true, then Weston was lashing out against a group actively trying to make the world a better place.

But then there was a third point to consider. This world wasn't Hudson's own. It was just one of an infinite number of parallel dimensions he owed no loyalty to. He had come here for the express purpose of acquiring technology the UNSC didn't have, not get involved in the machinations of warring factions by picking sides. There were enough opportunities to do that back home, what with the resurgence of the Insurrection and the various Covenant splinter groups.

His mission was already complete, the samples of RadAway and Rad-X safely stowed in his rucksack, but they had no ride home, not presently, and the Spartan turned to Tracy.

'Chief, how soon can you get Alpha 86 airborne again?' he asked.

'Three months, maybe,' the crew chief said. 'I'll need to check the damage first, and see if Greer will let me use whatever machine shop Vault 98 has, and get the bird back here so I can actually fix her, but yeah, three months.

'Probably.'

'Probably?' Williams said. 'Not really feeling comforted by that.'

'She took a missile strike to the starboard engine,' Tracy said quietly. 'And lost her aft port manoeuvring nacelle, and who knows what else when she crashed. Without a bin of spare parts, I'm going to have to make brand new replacements for everything.'

The Marine held up her hands by way of apology and said, 'Fair enough, but I'm kinda hoping we can go home at some point.'

'You're not the only one.'

Hudson just nodded as he digested this new information, that the team could be stuck in the wastelands for just over three months at best, provided everything went their way which, so far, hadn't been the case, meaning they'd have to find something to do to keep themselves occupied during those three or more months. As much as soldiers and Marines bitched about spending too long on the front, when actually presented with an extended downtime they began getting restless, eager for the action that defined their lives as combatants and there were only so many make do activities they could do before even that grew boring.

Admittedly, this only applied to Jex, Williams and Hudson, given Tracy would be spending the next three months barely sleeping as he fought to return a wrecked Pelican to active duty, and the three engineers would find a way to make themselves useful by picking apart some of Vault 98's technology to learn how it ticked and, maybe, improve it with their knowledge, but the three of them who were trained to fight? Nothing to do but sit around in some Vault and wait, bored out of their minds.

They needed something to do, to remain occupied and feel useful, and only one thing sprang to mind given their situation.

Jex and Williams looked at the Spartan as Hudson looked at them, a decade of fighting alongside one another allowing them communicate a great deal of information with just a few expressions and having a good idea of what was going on in each other's head, and they both nodded.

Hudson nodded back and got up, leaving the room to go in search of Sergeant Weston.

Battered, bruised, and undermanned, the crew of Alpha 86 was going to help fight the Brotherhood of Steel.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 98. 1028 Hours, May 06, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

He found Weston down in the Vault's rudimentary armour bay, dressed in oily overalls and tinkering with the hydraulic systems of her suit's leg, alongside maybe a dozen others who were doing much the same as their leader of running maintenance or making adjustments on their own suits, and they all stopped to look at the armoured Spartan in their midst.

Even without his inhuman height, Hudson stood out. The MJOLNIR armour that encased him was leaps and bounds beyond the T-45 and T-51 suits filling Vault 98's lower levels, sleek and shiny rather than bulky and faded, and packed with technology so advanced it would be next to impossible to try and replicate in the wastelands in any reasonable amount of time. To the soldiers around him, he may as well have been a god from Olympus come to aid them in their fight against the monsters of Hades.

Hudson swept his gaze across everyone and gave them curt nods of greeting before making his way to Weston, who stood and wiped her hands on a cloth that was just as greasy as her overalls. She craned her neck upwards to lock eyes with the Spartan, something made all the more pronounced by her short stature.

'We'll help,' Hudson said. 'For the time being.'

'You're not in it for the long haul?' Weston said.

'No,' Hudson said. 'As bad as things sound here, this isn't our home. We all have families waiting for us, and people we agreed to protect. Once the Pelican's fixed and we know it can make the jump, we'll be leaving, but if Tracy's assumptions are correct that'll be three months away at the earliest.'

A dark look swept across Weston's face at that, but it passed soon after. 'I guess if our roles were reversed, I'd be saying much the same thing. I can't ask you to drop everything and help us out instead. Besides, three months is a long time to do things, even in this place.'

'Agreed,' Hudson said. 'But, if we find evidence you were fabricating some of the tales about the Brotherhood, or blowing things out of proportion, our partnership won't be lasting too much longer.'

The dark look returned.

'Trust me, they're bad.'

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 98. 1200 Hours, May 10, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

For once, their luck held.

Leading the remains of his team and a select pick of Weston's troops, Hudson oversaw the recovery of Alpha 86 back to a National Guard hangar located only a few miles from Vault 98 where the ruined Pelican joined a smattering of Vertibirds and decrepit helicopters that had loaned their precious fuel to lift the dropship to safety, and where Tracey would be living for the foreseeable future as he resurrected the dead.

Once the bird was tucked away, Hudson and his two Marines went inside and stripped the interior of every weapon it contained, hauling them back to the Vault so they could begin the long process of cataloguing everything they had ahead of combat operations against the Brotherhood.

Assembled on the table, the array of weapons looked impressive and ranged from the simple pistol all the way up to the might Spartan Laser, more than enough for well trained and veteran troops to cause a lot of damage if they knew where and when to fire their weapons. The issue, though, was ammunition. Each member of the security team had been given a standard issue combat pack that contained enough supplies to keep them going in the field for two weeks.

With Archer and Fitzgerald dead, this just about doubled how long Hudson, Jex and Williams could keep the fight going but, if Tracy's estimates were correct, they'd need three times as much ammo to see themselves through to the end. This presented something of a problem given they had no reliable logistical base to rely on, Greer confirming that Vault 98 would be able to adjust its ammunition presses and machinists to create more compatible rounds and magazines but that their own supplies were limited and the main focus would still be on their own troops, whose weapon and ammunition requirements they could more readily accommodate.

This meant the two Marines and lone Spartan would have to choose where and when they struck with great care and deliberation, and that meant they needed a very detailed, very thought out plan with as much intelligence that they could gather.

'Okay, so, you know about the Citadel and the Purifier,' Weston began as she met with the UNSC troops, all four crowding around a well used map of the Capital Wasteland with the various post-War settlements marked on it. Some had been scribbled out, signalling they were no longer around, and most had a crude replication of the Brotherhood's emblem next to them.

'Yeah,' Hudson said. 'And the Washington Monument, and the GNR building, and Arlington Library.'

'They've acquired a bit more, now,' Weston said. 'A whole lot more.'

To which, Hudson had to agree. Rather than just holding the Monument, the Brotherhood had expanded its presence in the Mall to now include the Capitol Building and Underworld which served as additional barracks and storage for the ever growing organisation, housing recruits that couldn't fit into a Citadel that was partway through a wasteland retrofit. In the south, Rivet City was under their sway and to the north, Canterbury Commons was as well, giving the Brotherhood almost total control over all trading done within the DC area.

Further out into the desolation, Big Town and Paradise Falls served as forward operating bases for the Knights and Paladins that patrolled the wastes in search of mutant threats though, most bizarrely, Tenpenny Tower had become what passed for a luxury retreat for Brotherhood higher-ups or those in need of some recuperation after a traumatic mission.

'How did that one happen?' Hudson asked, his finger tapping Tenpenny's marker.

'The Brotherhood went in on what they call a 'technology retrieval operation', what everyone else calls an armed intrusion in the search for shiny baubles and gizmos,' Weston began. 'And in the process, had to put down several 'feral' ghouls that had taken up residence in the tower, leaving them with a well maintained and luxurious, by current standards, building that already had some fortifications.'

'Were feral ghouls really in there?' Hudson asked.

After a long pause, Weston said, 'No, they weren't. They were just trying to make a life for themselves after the Brotherhood forced them out of Underworld. They weren't even hurting anyone.'

Her hands clenched into fists for the briefest of moments then relaxed.

The last location Weston spoke of was Vault 108, the former fallout shelter with a sinister purpose converted into an emergency bunker for any surviving Brotherhood members should a new threat arise in the wastes that could lay ruin to their every outpost and stronghold. Should that happen, they would regroup inside the Vault, take stock of their available materials and heal any wounds, and then come up with a plan to retake DC, or just exact whatever revenge they could before dying out.

'I heard rumours before I took my leave that they were interested in 101 as well,' Weston said. '108's a ruin if I ever saw one, barely able to sustain the Knights and Scribes doing their best to get it into working order before anything bad happens in the wastes. A pristine Vault would be much more valuable to them.'

'Could they already have it?' Williams said.

'Maybe,' Weston said. 'It's been a while since I was last in the area, and the Vault's managed to keep them out so far thanks to Bryan, but with him gone and the higher-ups having a very keen hard-on for the place...'

She let that one hang in the air for several moments and allowed everyone to make their own assumptions about what fate had befallen Vault 101, with Williams breaking the silence to ask, 'How did Bryan take the Brotherhood's new direction?'

'Not overly well,' Weston said. 'He was raised by his dad to help others which lined up quite nicely with what Sarah and her father believed, even if Bryan was more progressive when it came to mutants than them, so when Maxson took the helm and started a reversal in their policies he was understandably unhappy. I can't imagine he took too kindly to them withholding help if payment couldn't be made on time.

'From what I heard, he retired to Vault 101 to get away from it all. No more wasteland adventures, no more helping the little guy, just day in and day out of grey concrete walls and starting a family with the Overseer. At least, until we got word he had come out again and was heading westward. Jury's still out on why.'

'Maybe the Brotherhood finally got into 101,' Williams said. 'I mean, there's no way to keep them at bay from something they want, right? They're too powerful for that. My thinking is, they got in and that pissed Bryan right off. His real home, his last bastion of peace, under the control of an organisation he openly dislikes? Too much, so he plots some kinda plan to get back at them and that involves leaving the Vault.'

'But why west?' Weston asked. 'I mean, yeah, the NCR's out that way and they're still gunning for the Brotherhood as far as I know, but there's about three months worth of walking between here and there. If he's going to them for help, it'll be a long time before they get here.'

Williams shrugged. 'Maybe there's another group closer in that can help, or he knows of some old military facility that's got a piece of super advanced weaponry he can use to wipe them all out. I don't know if that _is_ his plan, I'm saying it might be.'

'It sounds like something Bryan would do,' Weston murmured. 'There was a saying in the wastes about him. Break the Wanderer's trust and he'll break your everything. He helps people, but woe betide anyone who does something bad as a direct result of him helping them. Doesn't matter how powerful you might be, he'd find a way to royally screw you up.'

'So he might have some plan in motion already to bring the Brotherhood down?' Hudson said. 'Or, turn it back into what it was?'

'Maybe,' Weston said with a shrug. 'He could play his cards very close to the chest, even to those close to him. That's why everyone called him the _Lone_ Wanderer. If he has a plan, he won't tell all that many people about it until the time is right, provided he tells them at all.'

'Okay,' Hudson said. 'Let's consider him our backup plan if things don't go well.'

'We need an actual plan before we can have a backup plan,' Jex said.

'Which is why we're going to come up with one,' Hudson said. 'As was always the plan.'

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1730 Hours, May 15, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The four of them plotted long and hard, taking into consideration what resources they had available and what intelligence they had on the Capital Wasteland, emerging from the room with a better idea of what they needed to do to ensure a greater chance of success. Rather than openly engaging the Brotherhood in a war of asymmetrical attrition, the goal shifted to inciting the population to rise up against their overlords to supplement their forces.

They'd still pick away at the group's hold on the wasteland, targeting caches of supplies and random patrols, but the main focus was that of convincing the population they needn't live in fear of the power armoured troops, a daunting task given they were asking regular wastelanders to rise up against soldiers with years of experience and advanced technology on their sides but, when it came down to it, the odds were on the side of the wastelanders.

Powerful weapons weren't hard to come by, not if a person looked hard enough, and the armour worn by Knights and Paladins was only rated to withstand around three-thousand joules worth of kinetic energy, and that was just the chest piece. The arms, legs and helmet could only handle about half that which was well within the abilities of the R91 assault rifle, one of the most common weapons DC had to offer.

Air support was a much larger issue to tackle but most of the Brotherhood's Vertibirds were housed in the air base they had taken from the Enclave and, despite their ability to fly, took upwards of fifteen minutes to arrive at the Citadel after a scramble call was made and even then, they could only linger for half an hour before turning back due to low fuel. Once their plan gained traction, Hudson would lead a small strike force to damage or destroy the Vertibirds and their logistical support at Adams Air Force Base to return the Brotherhood of Steel into a purely ground-based organisation.

With the playing field levelled, and popular support behind them, the ragtag group operating out of Vault 98 would have a greater chance of emerging victorious in the region. A lofty goal, but a reasonable one nonetheless that put a spring into everyone's step as they worked to fortify their new base in the Capital Wasteland, a pair of ruined office buildings some raiders had once called home before Bryan had swept through and killed them all.

It wasn't too far from Canterbury Commons or the Citadel, a worrying notion given that both were bases of great importance that held plenty of troops, but it was large enough to accommodate all forty troops Weston had brought and all their gear, including fifteen suits of power armour scrubbed free of their unique 98 emblem. Snipers had already established their perches atop the buildings and three-man teams were walking the perimeter to get a feel for blind spots and for any threats that might be sneaking up on them.

Hudson had done a lap himself and saw nothing he didn't like, casting a wary eye to the east and south and the high concentration of hostile troops they held. How soon might the Brotherhood come and see who the new arrivals in the wastes were? What might their reactions be to seeing so many suits of power armour? Might they recognise the deserters and outcasts?

If they did come, and they didn't realise they were talking to deserters, and they didn't immediately ask for the surrender of all advanced technology, the agreed cover story was that of roving mercenaries who had come to the Capital Wasteland hoping to make some money before moving on to another region. Given the amount of weaponry they had, the story would seem plausible and maybe give the Brotherhood pause about trying a forcible incursion to claim whatever advanced technology they held.

After all, if a roving band of mercenaries had fifteen odd suits of power armour, the skill to use them and the knowledge to keep them in working order, what did that say about their combat ability? How many lives would they be willing to spend to reclaim this dangerous technology?

Who knew?

'Looking good so far,' Weston said as she approached the Spartan. 'There's plenty of rubble we can move about to create defensive lines and fortifications, so no worries there.'

'Okay,' Hudson said. 'How about repairs to the interiors?'

'The western building's doing fine so far. A lot of it's just clearing out the trash and shoring up some weak points. The eastern building? Parts of the upper floors have given way and made some lovely drops that can snap ankles if we're not careful. We're moving what we can, salvaging what we can, and getting some patches into place.'

'All right,' Hudson said. 'Timeframe?'

'A week, maybe two, and then we'll be all set,' Weston said as she moved to stand beside the Spartan and look out to where DC was, a hazy smudge on the horizon with a few towers still sticking up despite two centuries of abandonment. 'What's the first target gonna be?'

'Vault 108,' Hudson said. 'The previous crew attacked it and cleared out some squatters so we've got good scans of the interior, and if we do succeed in driving the Brotherhood to their knees I don't want them to get a chance to regroup and strike back from it.'

'Okay,' Weston said. 'Vault 108 it is.'


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1200 Hours, May 19, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The Brotherhood came to them a few days later, a small four man squad appearing on the horizon and marching steadily towards them with weapons out but held loosely across their chest, drawn inevitably by the construction of a new base by forces not their own. Being so close to two areas of vital importance to their operations certainly helped spur them into action, though privately Hudson wished they had waited another day or two to give the troops under him enough time to complete their base.

As it was, the only things that needed completing were related to the living arrangements with the physical defences being completed earlier in the day, barricades of metal and concrete and dirt offering Weston's troops adequate protection from small arms fire and shrapnel, and it was these defences that everybody ran to man once word got out a squad of Brotherhood soldiers were drawing near.

Hudson and Weston, the latter dressed in her suit of T-51, stood just beyond the main entrance of their fort with machineguns and sniper rifles on their flanks, waiting for the Knights or Paladins to come close enough before waving at them to stop.

'That's close enough,' Hudson said. 'State your business.'

'Brotherhood of Steel,' the nearest soldier replied, their armour bearing the rank slide of Paladin while those behind him were all Knights. 'Coming to see who you guys were.'

'Okay, we're a merc group,' Hudson said. 'Now you've seen who we are. Time to go home.'

'Not so fast,' the Paladin said. 'All I've seen is a bunch of guys in power armour holding a whole lotta guns. I need to know more than that.'

'How are we different from anyone else in the wastes?' Hudson said. 'Dangerous world out there. You never know who, or what, is coming after you.'

'It's different because you're the Capital Wasteland, and it's under the protection of the Brotherhood of Steel. People don't need to be heavily armed because we keep the peace.'

'Okay,' Hudson said. 'Am I supposed to be impressed?'

The Paladin bristled at that and said, 'Haven't you heard about the Brotherhood?'

'I've heard the NCR sent you packing with poorer guns,' Hudson began. 'And poorer equipment. And poorer training. So why, after that, should I drop to my knees in awe and reverence at the mention of the Brotherhood of Steel?'

The four soldiers visibly stiffened upon hearing those words of contempt from the Spartan, rifles twitching as though they were going to open fire on him and those around him but relaxed almost as quickly, cooler thoughts prevailing or simply taking note of the amount of high calibre weapons trained their way from behind sturdy defences.

'That was years ago,' the Paladin said. 'The Brotherhood's grown since then. I doubt the NCR's still around anymore.'

'Not what I heard,' Hudson said. 'Rumour has it, they've expanded all over California and are creeping up on Nevada and Arizona. No longer a few cities in the desert but a whole new state with the technical knowhow to back that up.

'Wouldn't be surprised if they're sending out recon parties this way already, hot on your heels.'

If the Paladin was shaken by this, he didn't show it. He just kept his gaze on Hudson with the occasional glance to Weston and the defences behind them both, likely sizing them up, saying, 'If they're expecting a fight, they'll get one, one they won't be winning.'

'You say so,' Hudson said with a shrug.

A silence fell over everyone, each party staring down the other, air thick with tension beneath the harsh desert sun. This was usually the part where the visiting group took the hint and left but the Brotherhood troops didn't, shifting from foot to foot and bouncing their rifles up and down a few times, casting their eyes from each weapon emplacement to the other, and Hudson got the impression they were stalling for time for one reason or another, a reason that Jex was soon in providing.

' _Skipper, got eyes on two targets to our north_ ,' he said. ' _Route, armour and posture suggests they ain't here to talk.'_

'Acknowledged,' Hudson said, making sure the Brotherhood troops heard him as he put a finger to his ear, signalling to them he was on the radio. 'Can you gauge if they have hostile intent?'

' _One has a sniper rifle, and the other has an assault rifle, so no, I don't think they're hostile. Probably just a recon team sent by our new friends.'_

'We can't have unknowns observing us,' Hudson said. 'Maintain observation and be ready to fire, on my command or upon seeing definitive hostile actions.'

' _Affirmative._ '

'Problem?' Weston said as though she had no knowledge of the radio conversation that had just taken place. She'd heard everything Jex had just said, but her innocuous question was solely for the Brotherhood's benefit. They had no reason to ask about the private matters of another group, one they had just met and were now hanging around for no good reason.

They did, in fact, have a reason to be lingering and that was to serve as a distraction. Hudson fully expected them to insert a small reconnaissance unit into play around their fort, to keep tabs on the unknown group, and to do it within a few days; he just didn't know when. Military thinking taught him that the insertion of recon teams be done during utter darkness, or during the twilight period, when the human eye has trouble seeing and when any sentries would be reaching a low point in their circadian rhythm.

So, this would be when he made sure everyone was alert and keeping a keen eye on the terrain for anything moving that shouldn't, which would be a bad time for anyone to send in even a small team, which would require them to send in their team at a different time. Had Hudson been the one to plan the insertion, he would have likely picked midday as the time solely for the reason that nobody was stupid enough to infiltrate anywhere when the sun was at its peak. Guards would be relaxing slightly, confident in their belief that nothing could escape their attention when the light level was the brightest it would be, or bemoaning the intense heat and splitting their time between drinking water and finding ways to keep cool.

Even so, sneaking in would be difficult and require full use of both terrain and camouflage techniques, usually blankets the same colour as the ground or armour additions to break up the outline of the human body, but if done correctly then it would give the team ample time to discern the daily goings on of their chosen target and be in place long before the enemy suspected they would be.

'Maybe. Overwatch has eyes on two unknowns, possibly a reconnaissance team, currently working their way into position to observe us,' Hudson said. 'I've told them to be ready to fire on my command, or upon the observation of hostile intent.'

'That part I got, sir,' Weston said. 'Still, though, better safe than sorry, right? Could be a rival crew looking to wipe us out. Why not send them a message?'

'I like your thinking, sergeant,' Hudson said. 'Overwatch, do you still have eyes on?'

' _Affirmative, skip. Waiting on you.'_

'Acknowledged,' Hudson said. 'Alert me when they get settled. We'll make the decision then.'

The lead Paladin shifted nervously from foot to foot upon hearing that, rifle twitching more than before, and Hudson and Weston made a point of looking at him directly.

'Problem?' Hudson asked.

'No,' the Paladin said after a miniscule pause. 'Nothing. Why?'

'Well, we've got two guys watching us and you're getting a little itchy,' Weston said. 'They're not yours, are they?'

'No,' the Paladin said, again with the small pause. 'But you can't just execute them for watching, can you?'

'I don't know,' Hudson said. 'You're watching us and I'm thinking it's for less than honourable reasons. Maybe we should shoot them, and you. We have the firepower to do so, after all.'

'No,' the Paladin said a third time. 'We were just leaving.'

'Understood,' Hudson said before radioing Jex. 'Overwatch, you're cleared to engage. Eliminate those targets. Sergeant, assemble a team to collect their belongings.'

'Sir,' Weston said before barking the names of two of her troops, both ghouls, to present themselves for a new tasking.

'Wait-' the Paladin said, reaching out with one hand, only for twin cracks from a rifle to cut him off before he could finish.

' _Targets down_ ,' Jex said.

'Understood,' Hudson said, gesturing at the two ghouls to carry out their task. 'Keep an eye out for any more unknowns trying to set up an observation post. You have permission to eliminate them as you see fit.'

' _Aye, aye._ '

Hudson turned to the four Brotherhood soldiers as they continued to stand there, rooted to the spot, and said, 'Something you wish to add?'

'N-No,' the Paladin said. 'I just-'

'What?' Hudson said. 'Don't like that we took those guys out? Well, we don't like being watched. Now run along before we decide you're watching us as well.'

He made a shooing motion with his hands before walking back into the fort, Weston following close behind, and they watched through a firing slit in the gate that closed after them as the four soldiers remained where they were for a moment longer before slinking away, heads held low.

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1237 Hours, May 19, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

'I think that went about as well as could be expected,' Hudson said.

'Came off as a bit of a dick, though, didn't you?' Williams said.

The Spartan shrugged. 'I wanted to let them know we won't be as easily cowed as other groups, and that they aren't welcome on our property. With any luck, they'll believe we'll put up a major fight if they come to try and take our technology.'

'And with the defences to back that up,' Weston added. 'You just know part of their mission was to scope out what fortifications we have.'

'Yup,' Hudson said. 'And, now they know we're ready to kill anything that looks like a threat near our base. This should give us some operational freedom for the next few days, maybe even weeks, until they decide to install some outposts near us, to keep a more distant eye on this place.'

Weston nodded in agreement at that and leaned over the table she and the UNSC troops were clustered around, a rough topographical map of the area spread across it that some of her troops had mocked up during the first few hours on location. It was nowhere near the quality of an overhead drone's feed, or trained surveyors, but the key changes in elevation and notable surface features like wrecks and buildings were included, making it better than nothing.

She pointed out three or four locations that could be used as outposts for the Brotherhood, isolated spots offering views of their compound and some form of cover, natural or otherwise, and suggested they place a team at each of them to deny the Brotherhood a chance at getting any solid intelligence on them, and to keep them at arm's length until the time was right. Hudson couldn't help but agree with her and dispatched Weston to get that organised.

When the sergeant returned, they turned their eyes to a wall mounted screen and the monochrome images it bore, a much more accurate map of an area of great interest, that of Vault 108's floor plan taken from the UNSC's briefing packet should Hudson and his team have to venture into the underground shelter again for whatever reason. They had plans for just about everywhere the previous crew went actually, including ones for New Vegas and its surrounding area, being one of the few instances of Alpha 86's luck turning out good.

The previous crew, also led by a Spartan, had entered the Vault via armed assault with the intention of fully clearing it of the mercenary forces that called the place home, tackling the black clad group head on in numerous firefights alongside the Pride, an elite unit within the Brotherhood of Steel at the time, pushing all the way to the reactor levels and ending Talon Company as an entity within the Capital Wasteland.

Like the mercenaries, the Brotherhood of this world had occupied the Vault as a stronghold of sorts, though unlike the guns for hire they had the ability to begin restoring the shelter into a more welcoming condition. Records taken from their main base indicated Vault 108 was designed to intentionally possess faults, like an inadequate power supply or an Overseer who would expire shortly after the Vault became active, and when the previous crew had gone in they reported seeing a dilapidated interior with few working lights.

The experience and knowledge of the Brotherhood Scribes would be quick to rectify these failings, giving the organisation an easily fortified stronghold, but if the data was to be believed then their attention would primarily be on the Vault's faulty reactor which Vault-Tec had intentionally designed to fail after twenty years with nothing but an insufficient geo-thermal plant to cope with the strain. It was this reactor that Hudson was interested in, and what his plan for the underground shelter revolved around.

Unlike reactors back home, the power plants in this world relied on fission based reactions to achieve power, converting water into high pressure steam that turned electrical generators, which required plenty of coolant to keep the reactor rods from growing too hot and exploding or melting, releasing deadly amounts of fissile materials into the atmosphere. If the UNSC's historic records for its version of America were roughly comparable, at least regarding reactor designs, the one in Vault 108 would be that of a pressurised water reactor.

It had several advantages over other reactor designs, compactness being one and a passive SCRAM system should power be lost, but at the same time the system wasn't without drawbacks. High pressure coolant and steam required high strength piping and metalwork to accommodate them, which became brittle and weak following bombardment by neutrons from the reactor, which made them all the more liable to breaching and losing all coolant, which in turn would cause the fuel rods to grow hotter and hotter

Given that the Vault had lain forsaken for the best part of two centuries with just aggressive clones to fill it, Hudson was genuinely surprised the reactor hadn't already failed spectacularly to turn the hallways into radioactive death traps in some form of great irony. Considering time hadn't done the job, it would fall to him and his team to render the reactor a hazard for decades to come.

But first, they had to get inside the Vault and then navigate their way through the corridors and atriums to reach the engineering section where their primary goal lay. Thankfully, the logs of SPARTAN-B124 proved useful given he had fought his way to the exact same place when eliminating Talon Company, but that was where the similarities ended. Whilst the older generation supersoldier had two squads of ODSTs as backup, plus the Pride, to go against mercenaries with substandard equipment and training, Hudson had maybe a dozen troops in power armour he could call upon to go up against one of the best trained outfits in the wasteland who had suits of power armour of their own, and often superior models at that.

A direct confrontation might not be the best option, not in this situation, especially with a need to stay under the rest of the Brotherhood's radar until such a time that the tables had turned, leaving a more covert infiltration as the better option here.

'What's the security situation likely to be?' Hudson asked aloud. 'Ballpark.'

'Not heavy, for definite,' Weston said. 'It's an important project, sure, but unlike Project Purity there's only one direction the enemy can come from, really. A single squad with heavy weapons can lock down the only entrance for as long as they have ammo, and they only need to hold the enemy at bay long enough for an SOS to be sent and for them to close the door. That's, what, two minutes at most?'

'Sounds about right,' Jex said. 'Then fall back behind thirteen tons of steel and wait for the cavalry.'

'And inside?' Hudson said.

'Nothing of any concern,' Weston said with a shake of her head. 'The main focus is going to be around the main door. After that, other than Scribes and some Knights, the only people in there are going to be Initiates doing stuff like cleaning up and manning the mess, nobody with proper combat training or equipment. Like I said, low threat environment.'

Hudson nodded his head in agreement, mind churning away at the problem. A squad or so of Paladins, equipped in T-60 power armour, guarding the entrance with another in reserve, or more likely a night shift provided they didn't close the whole place up once the sun set. Beyond them it would be a mainly civilian population with sporadic combat veterans mixed in, none of whom would be expecting an armed incursion, making for widespread weapons being unlikely.

If they could get past the initial security cordon, the biggest threat, the rest of the Vault would be easy pickings.

'We'll need eyes on the Vault entrance before we make a move,' Hudson said. 'I want two people on top of the old car factory with long range optics watching the Brotherhood, day and night, and another to slip into the tunnel during the night to see if they shut the door or not. We maintain this for three days to make sure they stick to routine, then move forward with the assault.

'If Weston's predictions are right, we'll be going up against a primarily unarmed group with only a light security detail, and the late hour will likely mean most are going to be asleep. We take suppressed weapons and eliminate as many as we can, then split our attention between gathering intelligence, collecting weapons and equipment, and sabotaging the reactor.

'Once everything's done, we regroup at the main door and make our escape, leaving behind a few parting gifts to knock the opening mechanism permanently out of action in case we miss a few people and they survive the radiation.

'Sergeant, I'll leave the troop selection up to you. They are your people after all.'

'Agreed,' Weston said. 'I got a few candidates in mind.'

'Good,' Hudson said. 'Make sure they're good operators, because I doubt we'll get another shot at this any time soon.'

The former Enclave soldier and Brotherhood deserter nodded and departed, followed soon after by Jex and Williams, leaving Hudson alone to stare at the floor plan of Vault 108 and wonder just what modifications the Scribes and Knights had made to the bunker complex and how it differed from the Vault that B124 had cleared of hostiles, and how they might affect his own plan to remove the current tenants.

After all, no plan survived first contact with the enemy.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 108. 2356 Hours, May 22, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The assault on Vault 108, like it had under SPARTAN-B124, was achieved with minimal casualties on the UNSC's side whilst inflicting almost total on the enemy. Three days of observations by troops atop the nearby car factory showed most of the foot traffic in and out was relegated mainly to supplies needed to fix the Vault and to feed the people inside, and a night time incursion by an incredibly brave/insanely stupid ghoul revealed that nobody manned the Vault's entrance once they shut the door, believing it to be an impenetrable barrier between them and the outside world.

Once the sun went down, the troops stationed outside the tunnel entrance retreated inside and emerged only after light hit their rudimentary defences, with the first of the caravans appearing an hour after that from Canterbury Commons, or Rivet City, or the Citadel itself, signalling the start of a whole new day.

Armed with this information, Hudson and Weston had a squad of their troops use Stealth Boys to sneak into the Vault entrance whilst the door was still open with instructions to wait an hour between the guards leaving and opening the door so the rest of the group could come in. There, armed with suppressed weapons and sharp knives, they set about finding the Brotherhood's main security detail to eliminate them whilst they slept. Others went to the power armour station to take control of the T-60 suits housed there, denying the enemy a chance to employ them against the intruders.

By the time midnight was rolling around, most of the Brotherhood's troops were either dead or being held captive in the main atrium, guarded by ghouls who looked down on the Scribes and Knights with disgust and contempt whilst the more indignant of their prisoners expressed anger and indignation at being held under gunpoint by such mutants. The rest simply kept their gazes down whilst muttering prayers to themselves, avoiding eye contact with anyone walking around.

Hudson stared down at them from the atrium's upper level with Weston beside him as she ran her finger down a clipboard detailing the Vault's workforce, counting them off and comparing the number to those below, and those already killed.

'We're about a dozen short,' she said. 'Initiates mainly, plus a single Scribe. Nothing to really get excited about.'

'Missions have been blown with less,' Hudson observed.

'I know,' Hudson said. 'What I'm saying is, I'd be more worried if it was a Paladin or two unaccounted for rather than a bunch of Initiates.'

'And a Scribe,' Hudson said, tapping a finger against the name of the last remaining engineer/scientist. 'They can cause trouble for us in other ways, like overriding systems we'd rather they not.'

'Not this guy,' Weston said. 'According to his code, he works with robotics rather than civil engineering projects like a Vault. See?'

She showed the clipboard to Hudson and pointed to a seemingly random code next to the Scribe's name that contained numbers and letters, the Brotherhood's equivalent to an MOS code that was indecipherable to anyone who didn't know how to decode it.

'I'll take your word for it,' the Spartan said.

Weston just shrugged and took the clipboard away, turning her gaze down to their prisoners.

'Are we really going to kill them all?' Hudson asked.

'Unfortunately,' Weston said. 'We can't take them with us because we don't have anywhere to hold them, and we can't assume the radiation will kill them all because some might turn into ghouls, or they'll find somewhere the radiation won't reach. It takes just one of them with the knowhow to fix that door after we're gone to spread the word about who did this.

'It's barbaric. I know. I'm not too keen on doing this, either. Some of them might have joined up because they had nowhere else to go, or were press ganged into doing it if they had a skill the Brotherhood needed, and if I felt we could convince them to join us I'd be doing that right now. But, I don't think we could trust them enough to take them at their word, especially as we're making them choose between summary execution and joining the people who just laid waste to their friends and comrades.'

Hudson said nothing. It sounded less like she was trying to convince him it was the right thing to do than it was convincing herself, saying aloud why they couldn't afford to let even one person live and why they couldn't attempt to coax some of them over to their side. What they were doing was nothing more than the cruel pragmatism that came about during asymmetrical warfare, though Hudson had never found himself in a position where he'd needed to execute any substantial number of prisoners, mainly because the Covenant threw themselves into battle with such fervour that few remained alive long enough to be captured.

On those rare occasions where they managed to snag live Covenant troops, ONI personnel came along and took them away without a word to do who knew what to them. Knowing the shadowy organisation, summary executions came into play somewhere along the line.

'War sucks, sometimes,' Hudson muttered with a resigned sigh.

'Don't it just,' Weston said in agreement. 'But a war we're in, lieutenant. Sometimes, hard choices have to be made.'

The Spartan nodded vaguely in agreement before letting out another low breath of resignation, waving Weston off as he moved towards the Overseer's office that had served much the same purpose under the Brotherhood.

'Your rodeo, sergeant,' he said.

'Yes it is,' Weston said quietly, moving after the augmented human.

She reached him just as he ducked under the door into the dank office, keying the rusted portal shut as Hudson started picking through the files and folders piled up on a table set against the wall. Most of them contained technical drawings of the various subsystems located within the Vault or the workarounds the Scribes had come up with to bypass the things they couldn't repair. One of the more interesting files that caught the Spartan's eye was a thick sheaf of papers detailing how to fix something labelled as a water chip, a seemingly indispensible part of the bunker's water systems, and he forced himself to focus on them as a distraction from the sudden flurry of gunfire coming from the atrium as the Brotherhood prisoners were summarily executed by minigun wielding ghouls.

'Hard to think they'd need to put so much focus on one of these when they've got the Purifier in the Jefferson Memorial,' Hudson said, gesturing to the technical documents and diagrams.

'You'd be surprised how important water chips can be,' Weston said. 'One of those was more or less responsible for saving California from becoming overridden by super mutants.'

'By providing fresh water?' Hudson said, turning to look at his companion in bewilderment. How could pure water prevent the brutish mutants from taking control of a whole state?

'No, by sending just the right person out into the wastes at just the right time,' Weston said. 'One of the Vaults on the West Coast needed a water chip so they sent this guy, Albert I think, in search of it. He ended up sorting out a whole bunch of problems in California but the biggest one was stopping the super mutants and their leader, the Master, from capturing people and turning them into more mutants.

'If he hadn't, the NCR wouldn't exist and neither would the Brotherhood, probably.'

'Would the Enclave?' Hudson asked. 'You came from the west, right?'

'Yeah, but on an oil rig a few hundred miles off the coast. The muties wouldn't have been able to get at us. Well, not easily and not without massive casualties on their side.'

Hudson just nodded and dropped the file back down onto the table, hefting another that was substantially smaller than the others. In fact, it was more accurate to call it just a single piece of paper with a shopping list of mechanical parts written onto it, some of which were crossed out or had annotations next to them. Most of what was written down stumped the Spartan, and Weston too when he showed it to her. They knew what most of the parts were but failed to imagine what might require everything listed, unless they were for numerous different projects and lumped together simply to save on what was no doubt a limited resource. Hudson couldn't imagine there were many paper mills still in operation nearby.

'Resurrection,' Weston read when she glanced at the folder's title. 'Sounds ominous.'

'Or pretentious,' Hudson retorted. 'Back home, we give weapons development projects bombastic names to inspire confidence or to sound cool for the news media. My armour is named after Thor's mighty hammer, for instance. Resurrection could just be what the Scribes are calling their efforts at updating the Citadel or the Purifier.'

'Maybe,' Weston said with a shrug. 'What else we got? Anything good?'

'Doubtful,' Hudson said. 'They're trying to repair this place, turn it into a fallback position, not use it as a secure facility. The only things here are likely to be related to rebuilding Vault 108, or plans for what projects it can be used to help fulfil if they can't whip into shape.'

They looked anyway, combing through the folders and files and folios for anything of interest or might help their effort against the Brotherhood, but as Hudson foretold there wasn't much that got their hopes up. There were about a dozen folders similar to Resurrection, containing nothing but a single piece of paper with a long list of items written upon it and the occasional annotation, much of it bemoaning the poor state of 108 and how getting it back into a working order would actually require pulling resources away from other, more important projects and programs.

Plenty of references were made to Resurrection and its importance over almost everything else, piquing Hudson and Weston's interest in the thin file once more, but beyond the shopping list there was nothing to suggest just what Resurrection was or why it was so important to the Brotherhood to start with. Hudson pocketed the list anyway, reasoning it might come in handy one day, and joined Weston in leaving the Overseer's office once they were done with the folders.

She headed downstairs into the atrium and towards the cafeteria that housed the corridor leading to Vault 108's mechanical heart, giving the mass pile of corpses and the wide reaching pool of blood on the floor a long and haunted look before hurrying along. Hudson paused for a second or two to take in the scene a little more, watching the ghouls as they sorted through the bodies for signs of life or anything of value, pocketing caps and trinkets whilst slipping a knife between the ribs of the occasional survivor.

He half expected them to relish the job of killing people who saw them as nothing but freaks and zombies that needed to be exterminated but no, they carried out their tasks with lethargy and grim expressions on their faces, as though having to kill so many people was the last thing they'd wanted to do. They seemed regretful, actually, like they thought the people lying dead might have been someone they could have gotten along with had the circumstances been different. It was a sentiment Hudson had felt himself during his combat career, though only against the Innies. The Covenant had been too... _alien_ for him to fathom them having the same hobbies and interests as him.

There might be someone within the Brotherhood of Steel who could have been his next best friend, or maybe even his lover if there was that special spark, just like there might be that special someone hidden amongst the Insurrection. Alas, their conflicting allegiances meant such a relationship would be a near impossibility to sustain.

'War sucks, all right,' Hudson muttered to himself again as he slipped after Weston, averting his gaze from the ghouls just as they found a still breathing Initiate and drew an already bloody blade.

 **Spartan Hudson, interior of fallout shelter Vault 108. 0116 Hours, May 23, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The reactor of Vault 108 was a thing to behold, Hudson thought, if only because of how rusty and ramshackle it appeared to be as he stood before it. Decades, if not centuries of disuse and minimal care had covered the once pristine parts and panels with grime and rust that the Scribes and Initiates had started to scrub away. In one area, an orange spot had appeared on the floor after a drip of water went unattended for an untold number of years. This was particularly worrying as the drip came from a joint between two lengths of piping that served the cooling system, and even though the Brotherhood had replaced the rubber gasket and screws Hudson could still see the flecks of rust in the metal.

He was once again astounded the reactor of Vault 108 hadn't already gone prompt-critical already, or reduced itself to motel slag, and flooded the area with lethal amounts of radiation. His Geiger counter was ticking merrily along already even though he and Weston were still standing in the doorway to the reactor space, suggesting the containment systems were starting to lose effectiveness.

'Looks healthy,' Weston said.

'Yep,' Hudson said. 'Almost too healthy to destroy.'

Weston just nodded as she pulled out several blocks of plastic explosives from her bag, neatly cut into squares ready for placement, and set about her tasks with the mechanical precision needed from someone handling volatile explosives. Hudson followed suit and approached the reactor vessel with bricks in hand, shoving them between pipes carrying coolant and underneath the vessel itself so that nothing could enter it, and anything that might would drain away instantly.

Then again, it would be a miracle if there was anything for coolant to trickle into given the amount of explosives he and Weston were using. They weren't so much rendering the reactor incapable of containment as they were rendering it incapable of retaining its basic form. Thinking that brought a faint smile to Hudson's face as it reminded him of an old adage; _if you need it destroyed by tomorrow, bring in the Marines_.

'You about done there, Spartan?' Weston called out from her side of the room.

'Just about,' Hudson said. 'Three more blocks to place and I'm done.'

'Good,' Weston said. 'Four for me.'

'Acknowledged,' Hudson said. 'Time still set for oh-two-hundred?'

'Yeah,' Weston said.

'Good,' Hudson said.

He finished quickly and stepped away from the reactor just a few seconds before Weston did, the two of them taking a moment to admire their handiwork and think forward to what would happen come two o'clock before leaving the reactor space once and for all. Come two, it would be filled with noise and light and wailing sirens and superheated steam, never to be safe for unprotected humans to enter ever again.

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 0800 Hours, May 23, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

Hudson raised the binoculars to his eyes and focused them onto the motley collection of caravan workers and mercenaries standing near the tunnel entrance leading into Vault 108, apparently bewildered and confused by the lack of Brotherhood presence manning the defences and the closed Vault door. He fought to suppress a faint smile at their predicament and passed the optics to Williams.

'How long do you think before they get a Brotherhood response team down here?' he asked her.

'Oh, I'm sure they're on their way here now,' she said. 'Those guys down there have radios, the Citadel has Vertibirds, this is a sensitive location. I bet they've got a rapid response force dedicated to Vault 108 waiting for just such an occasion.'

'My thoughts exactly,' Hudson said.

They wouldn't be able to get inside once they arrived, though. Not with the door mechanism blown to smithereens and the door itself being all but invulnerable to anything but atomic warheads, leaving them to speculate wildly as to just what had taken place behind the thirteen ton slab of steel and tungsten. Sabotage? Mechanical failures? Secession? Who could know?

As if on cue, a trio of Vertibirds came flying over and landed near the caravans, depositing a squad of Paladins armed with laser rifles that marched right up to the huddle and began grilling them on what was happening. Two peeled off to investigate the door itself, reappearing a few minutes later to no doubt report that the door was shut and the control panel was non-responsive. The rest of the squad ducked inside to verify this information and came back out just as quickly, huddling up together for several moments.

One left the group and jogged up to the Vertibirds and spoke with the pilot of one, probably to ask for technical support from the Citadel, then jogged back to the rest of the group.

As they went, Williams spoke up.

'Skipper, can I ask a question?' she said.

'Sure,' Hudson said. 'What's up?'

'Are we on the right side of this fight?'

'How do you mean?'

'I mean, are we doing the right thing taking on the Brotherhood of Steel?' Williams said. 'They've done a lot of good for the people here and less than eight hours ago, we were complicit in the execution of unarmed prisoners of war. The good guys don't do shit like that, they do what they do and protect against real threats like mutants and raiders.'

She pointed at the Paladins and Knights as she spoke, the six or so of them now just milling about as they waited for whatever backup they'd requested to arrive from the Citadel.

'Do they assassinate altruistic leaders they don't like? Hudson asked. 'Or arrange for the death of a radio host who got a little too mouthy about their new direction? Or let a settlement get swallowed up by the wasteland if they can't, or won't, pay them protection money?'

'That's just Weston's word,' Williams said. 'And she's somewhat biased.'

'There'll be a kernel of truth in there somewhere,' Hudson said. 'All myths, legends and fairy tales do.'

'You don't really think she's telling the truth, do you?'

'I think she was very passionate about what the Brotherhood's been doing, and that she's gotten herself a sizeable amount of followers who feel the same way. There has to be some truth, even if it's just about them letting the wasteland destroy the homes of people who don't pay.'

Williams looked at the Spartan and said, 'So, what, you're agreeing to follow her without actually confirming if what she's told you is true?'

'No, of course not,' Hudson said, looking back at Williams. 'Part of our mission here is recon, after all. In a few days, you and me and Jex are going to go out into the Capital Wasteland and see for ourselves what life is like under the Brotherhood of Steel, and see how much of what Weston told us is true or not.

'I want to be able to tell myself that killing all those people like that was wholly justifiable, not because somebody has a bone to pick with the Brotherhood that has nothing to do with how people living under them are treated.'

'Perhaps we should have done the walk around a little earlier, then,' Williams suggested dryly.

'Yeah, hindsight's a bitch,' Hudson muttered. 'Which is why we're doing our little exploration as soon as, so we can say with certainty that we're on the right side of the fight and that we won't have any deaths weighing down our consciences.'

'No argument here,' Williams said. 'How do you think Weston's going to take your decision?'

'However she wants to,' Hudson said. 'She'll probably want to come with us, but I want it to be just the three of us. The good sergeant might sway our perceptions more than she'd mean to.'

'What do you expect to find out there?' Williams asked.

'Proof,' Hudson said as he turned back to the Vault entrance, a fourth Vertibird flying in. 'One way or the other.'


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 0915 Hours, May 26, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

Dark clouds were gathering on the far horizon as Hudson, Williams and Jex arrived at the entrance to Arefu, a small settlement built on the remains of an old elevated highway that had partially collapsed, the first stop on their tour of the wastelands to see for themselves just what life under the Brotherhood was like. The location intrigued Hudson because, from how Weston described it, physical security wouldn't have been an issue for the inhabitants given threats could only really come at the settlement from a single direction, and one where they lacked the height advantage.

Despite this, as Hudson saw, there was a single Brotherhood of Steel Knight standing guard midway up the ramp, armed with a minigun, and flanked by two Initiates in combat armour that carried laser rifles. They all watched as Hudson and his team approached, warily heading into partial cover and hefting their weapons, with the Knight moving to block the Spartan when he started up the ramp.

'What do you want?' the Knight said.

'What?' Hudson said.

'I said, what do you want?' the Knight repeated. 'Why are you here?'

'To have a look around, obviously,' Hudson said. 'You can't get much intelligence about a place by sitting around in a fort, listening to the radio. You need to get proactive and see for yourself what's out there, what customers there might be.'

'Well, you ain't gonna find any customers here,' the Knight said. 'They've got all the protection they need and it doesn't come from a band of mercs who might be here one week and gone the next. The Brotherhood is here to stay.'

'So I've heard,' Hudson said, looking past the power armoured individual into Arefu and the listless settlers who called it home as they went about what passed for a daily life here, one or two of them casting their gazes down the ramp at the newly arrived trio. 'But things can change.'

'Like what?' the Knight asked.

'A new group could come in, offering a whole new product,' Hudson said. 'One vastly superior to the one they have now, and gives them something more than a stranger with a gun outside their home.'

The Knight gave him a wary look. 'Like what?'

'Independence,' Hudson said. 'We teach them how to defend themselves against the wasteland, reclaim it even, rather than hide in a hole and let somebody else do all the hard work, like you guys do.'

That riled the Knight up a little judging by the way his head jerked back an inch and his footing shifted almost imperceptibly, and he took half a step towards the Spartan as he said, 'And what's the supposed to mean?'

'Don't know your own history?' Hudson said. 'Well, let me tell you about some of the major events in the wasteland and how the Brotherhood of Steel played only very minor roles in them. First off was the Master and his mutant army, back in the 2160s, who threatened to convert everyone into super mutants to bring about peace. Was it an army of Paladins who saved the day? No, it was some Vault Dweller looking for a water chip that stopped the Master whilst the Brotherhood sent only a single squad to clear the entrance of Mariposa base.

'Fast forward to the 2240s and the appearance of the Enclave, you sat around and did nothing whilst some tribal did all the heavy lifting of sneaking onto their oil rig and nuking the place, and all he wanted to do was get a GECK to save his village from dying out. Even when it came to mopping up the remnants at Navarro, the NCR did most of the heavy lifting and actually put the captured technology to good use, unlike you guys who just horde the shinier weapons.

'Even ten years ago right here in the Capital Wasteland, it wasn't the Brotherhood of Steel righting wrongs and putting the area on the path to recovery but another kid fresh from the Vault, one looking for their dad. At best you loaned him some assistance, and then capitalised on his successes to make yourselves out to be the ones who did it all.'

Hudson finished and let silence fall over them all, watching the Knight carefully as he seemed to quiver with rage and anger at having his chosen organisation so glibly mocked by an outsider and one who was willing to work alongside ghouls, the muzzle of his minigun twitching ever so slightly as though the Knight kept wanting to bring the weapon to bear on Hudson and gun him down before realising he couldn't do that, not without a perfectly valid reason.

Eventually, he said, 'You're definitely not coming in here.'

'Why?' Hudson replied. 'Did I hurt your feelings?'

'Because the people don't want what you're selling,' the Knight said. 'They get all the protection they need from the Brotherhood of Steel, an organisation that's looking out for their best interests rather than milking them for every cap they have, which means you ain't getting any custom from these people.

'Now, turn around and start walking away before things get messy.'

'No,' Hudson said. 'I'm going into Arefu and asking the people directly what they want, not what their security guards says they want.'

'You ain't setting one foot into here,' the Knight said.

'I am,' Hudson said as he took a step closer, the Knight matching his movement in turn to close the gap between them.

'You're not,' the Knight said.

Hudson took another step forwards with the Knight doing the same so that now they were just about at arm's length from one another, the minigun's muzzle just a foot or so off being aimed squarely at the Spartan's chest and the Knight's finger resting lightly on the weapon's activation stud, almost as a way of telling Hudson he was ready, willing and able to violently keep him out of Arefu, which told Hudson all he needed to know about the Brotherhood of Steel's operations in the region.

If the Brotherhood's grasp on the Capital Wasteland was a result of mutual respect, like the Knight was insisting it was, then he would have allowed Hudson access to Arefu without much fuss so that the people who lived there could tell the Spartan to his face that his services weren't needed because they had everything they could want from the Brotherhood of Steel. By barring him access like this, and given the lack of enthusiasm the settlers went about their business with behind him, it came across that the relationship between the two groups wasn't as cordial as it should be, and that the higher ups might have issued an edict to their troops telling them to deny access to the mercenary group currently trying to set up operations in the region for fearing of losing their support bases in the Capital Wasteland.

Of course, it could just be because the first interaction between the Brotherhood of Steel and Hudson's group was mired by a poor attitude on the Spartan's part, complete with a dismissal of the post-war organisation's supposed superiority, and only further worsened by his recent mocking of their apparent inability to do anything without outside help, usually by people of more humble beginnings, but Hudson was fairly certain it was the former.

Maybe the higher ups had given some reasonable explanation as to why the people of the Capital Wasteland shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves, like some kind of war breaking out between the settlements as they fought over who got the biggest and best equipment to look after themselves with, or maybe the Elders had simply said the people couldn't be trusted to handle their own protection because they lacked the knowledge and wisdom of the Brotherhood of Steel.

 _That_ was a ridiculous idea given the people who lived in the wasteland actually had more practical knowledge of surviving in such a hostile environment than the Brotherhood, who had barely emerged from their bunkers in the two-hundred years since the dropping of the bombs, and had done so for several generations despite not having advanced power armour or flashy energy weapons to aid their cause.

'I am going inside,' Hudson said. 'And I'm going to ask the people of Arefu what they really want, not what _you_ say they want, and you're _not_ going to stop me.'

'I thought I told you-' the Knight began to say, pushing the firing stud on his weapon just enough to spin the barrels as he swung it around to point directly at the Spartan's chest.

But Hudson had other ideas. He stepped forward and grasped the barrels in one hand, stopping them cold and making the motor whine and screech in protest, and used his augmented strength to simply crush the steel constructs into a mangled mess that would never fire again, not without blowing up in the operator's face anyway. He let go and continued to walk past the now mute Knight who could only look down at his ruined weapon in shock with Jex and Williams following close behind.

The two Initiates, who now composed the final line of defence for Arefu, could only look at Hudson with terror as he stalked closer. One summoned no small amount of courage to point their laser rifle at him but Hudson broke that to, crushing the main body of the weapon to leave it sparking and belching acrid black smoke, which prompted the other to take several steps backwards with their weapon pointed down at the ground, though about halfway up the ramp the Knight came after them once normal service resumed within his head, uttering some animalistic snarl as he charged after Hudson.

Whilst it was a noble gesture aimed at reclaiming some measure of respect, either from himself or the people of Arefu who had gathered in their numbers to watch the event, it was ultimately a foolish one as the Knight simply lacked the speed and agility necessary to pose a serious kind of threat towards the Spartan who reacted by delivering a lightning fast kick to the power armour wearing soldier's chest that dented the steel plating there and sent him flying backwards down the ramp, filling the air with a series of thundering crashes and ear splitting screeches as the Knight bounced off the ramp and came to an eventual stop at the very bottom of the road, gingerly sitting up to look around in a daze from the repeated impacts.

Both Initiates ran after him, one tripping and falling themselves, and were quick to try and help their superior to his feet, or at least into a more comfortable position, as the UNSC troops span on their heels and walked the rest of the way in Arefu unhindered.

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 0937 Hours, May 26, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

The way in which the people of Arefu reacted to Hudson walking into their settlement was telling in itself of how they viewed their relationship with the Brotherhood of Steel as while none of them let out joyous exultations at seeing the dispatching of their guard, who may or may not have been forced upon them, neither did they rally against the Spartan in support of the Knight and the organisation he represented. Instead they just looked at him with dumbstruck expressions that could have swung either way into hope or anger, mouths agape, until one of their number regained enough wits to take a step or two forward and speak with Hudson.

'What the hell did you do that for?' the guy asked.

'He wouldn't let me into your settlement,' Hudson said simply.

'And don't you think there might be a reason for that?' the guy asked back.

'He gave me one, yes,' Hudson said. 'But I don't generally trust what comes out of the Brotherhood's mouth, so I figured I'd come and ask you directly why you don't want me here in Arefu. If it matches up, I'll leave peaceably.'

'If it don't?' the guy asked, cautious.

'Well, we get to talk a little more,' Hudson said. 'About your future and that of Arefu.'

The guy swallowed nervously at that and his eyes darted from side to side, likely looking for support, but the people of Arefu were doing their best to avoid making any direct eye contact with their apparent mouthpiece. The Knight could have given any kind of reasoning for why they hadn't wanted the Spartan coming into Arefu and it seemed nobody wanted to hazard a guess as to what it might have been, doubly so when a wrong answer would have some kind of effect on their future lives.

Again, their lack of solidarity with the Brotherhood of Steel shone through as they would have likely just shouted Hudson down when he asked his question if the relationship between the two was as cordial as the Knight made it out to be. With the people keeping their gaze off Hudson and their mouths shut, he was leaning more and more towards them being forced to have Brotherhood protection.

'Because we didn't want you here?' the guy offered, sounding like even he didn't believe it was the right answer, which it certainly wasn't.

'But why?' Hudson asked, causing the guy's face to fall from dismay. 'Why didn't you want me here?'

'B-Because we just don't,' the guy said. 'It's as simple as that.'

Hudson shook his head and said, 'It really isn't. You not wanting me here because you don't want me here is ridiculous circular logic that helps nobody. This is the last chance to tell me _exactly_ what the reason was the Knight back there gave me about why I couldn't come into Arefu. I'm certain at least one of you spoke with him to give him the reason.'

He stopped and turned in a full circle to look at all the settlers in turn, a rough dozen or so dressed in a mixture of scavenged pre-war clothing and crude post-war garments that made them look exactly like survivors of some apocalypse that had swept across the Earth. All of them shied away from his gaze but none spoke up, their tongues stayed from fear it seemed, so the Spartan returned his attention to the guy who had stepped forward to begin with who, in turn, appeared to wilt under the intensity of the stare Hudson was giving.

'Because,' the guy tried lamely, only to taper off when nothing suitable sprang to mind and he hung his head in resignation shortly afterwards, adding, 'Are you going to hurt us now?'

'No, of course not,' Hudson said with a soft tone that made the guy snap his head back up in alarm. 'We're here to help you, all of you.'

He looked around everyone again as they fixed their gazes on him once more, a mixture of shock and confusion on their faces at hearing such words coming from such a figure, one that had sent a Brotherhood Knight flying down a ramp after destroying his weapon and whom they had then assumed was likely going to ransack their town for what few valuables it contained.

'Shall we continue this discussion inside?' Hudson suggested, nodding at the encroaching clouds that were as black as the night sky.

To which the guy could only nod, and was soon leading everyone inside as the wind began picking up.

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1002 Hours, May 26, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

A keen howl sounded throughout the shack as the storm's winds rushed across it, shaking the structure and worming its way inside through the myriad of cracks and holes in the scrap metal that served as walls and roofing, whilst steady trickles of water came in through just as many rends in the roof. So many, in fact, that simply finding a spot that was dry was near impossible to do. Pots, pans and jugs littered the floor beneath the largest of the drips and those nearest to them were constantly emptying them outside, but there were simply too many to cover and the floor was already wet from rainwater.

It did little to deter the people even as their clothes became soaked through, the majority of them doing their best to crowd around Hudson as he spoke.

'We're part of a mercenary group,' he began. 'Fresh into DC a week or so ago, looking for work. The usual stuff, guarding caravans and towns and farms, but we also make it a point to teach settlements how to be self sufficient when it comes to their own defence. Things like small unit tactics and weapon maintenance, even building fortifications. Useful stuff.'

'Interesting business plan,' somebody called out. 'You take up their protection, then make it so they don't have to rely on you. Bet you're just raking in the caps doing that.'

'You'd be surprised,' Hudson said. 'Being able to fend off threats yourself can feel pretty empowering the first time you do it successfully, so plenty of people will pay top dollar for that kind of service. Besides, we've all got wanderlust to some certain degree. We get stir crazy if we're in one place for too long. Some of us have even come all the way from California.'

'Is that how you knew about the Brotherhood of Steel?' somebody else asked.

'Yes,' Hudson said. 'And they aren't viewed in too kind of a light back west.'

'Is that why you don't trust them?' the same person asked.

The Spartan gave a half nod and said, 'Yeah. They don't like other people sharing their spotlight as being the most advanced faction in the wastes, so they launched a war against another group, the New California Republic, because they were amassing and using recovered technology to benefit peoples' lives.

'So whenever we come across any of their kind in the wastes, we treat them with mistrust and disdain.'

'Kinda risky,' another person pointed out. 'They do have power armour and advanced weapons, you know.'

'So do we,' Hudson said. 'Around fifteen suits, mainly the T-45 and T-51 models, plus my own one, and we're just as tenacious in a fight as them. Maybe more so because we don't rely on our power armour as much as them. It makes you fight smarter, not harder.'

There were some appreciative murmurs going around the shack upon hearing that and Hudson saw more than a few people give each other glances, as though silently discussing between themselves whether or not it would be a good idea to hire Hudson and his team with one asking, 'What kind of things would you teach us?'

'Like I said earlier,' Hudson began. 'Small unit tactics and weapon maintenance, so that when the raiders next come to play you'll be more than ready to tackle them. A bit of training can make all the difference in the world when it comes to a firefight.

'We can even throw in classes on engaging foes dressed in power armour, if you so wish.'

Silence fell over the gathered crowd at that, their eyes drawn almost involuntarily to the ramp and the Knight who should still be standing guard there, before drifting back to Hudson who just looked back at them all.

'There's more than just myself and the Brotherhood who have power armour,' he said. 'It couldn't hurt to know how, and more than that it gives you some confidence for when you're telling the Knights and Paladins their services are no longer needed. I can only imagine they will try to impress upon you once more how desperately you _need_ their protection.'

Another quiet moment occupied the room that was broken only when the very first guy, the one who had spoken up to begin with, said, 'What makes you say they backed us into a corner to accept their protection?'

'Because,' Hudson said. 'I figured it out for myself by the way you were all acting when I first walked in. If you really wanted the Brotherhood here, I would have been booed and jeered out of Arefu the moment I kicked that Knight down the ramp at best, and viciously assaulted at worst. Instead you all just stood by with apathy, and you couldn't come up with the reason why the Knight didn't let me in.

'That told me they were forcing themselves upon you.'

Silence once again reigned supreme barring the roar of the wind and rain battering Arefu as everyone looked down at the ground upon hearing that comment, gloomy looks on their grimy faces. They had probably convinced themselves that it was a mutually beneficial relationship somehow, pointing to the reduction in raider attacks on their home as proof, but deep down they seemed to know the Brotherhood was running an extortion racket on both them and the Capital Wasteland at large. Hearing somebody else, who had only met them a short while ago, openly say it probably brought those hidden feelings back to the surface once more.

'Because you have to,' the guy said quietly. 'If you don't accept their help when they offer it the first time, then raiders and rogue merc outfits come after you almost regularly, stealing your food and hurting your people, so you either beg the Brotherhood for help or try and make a stand yourself, and that never ends well.'

'Does that seem strange?' Hudson asked.

'Does what?' the guy asked back.

'That these raider groups and hostile mercenary organisations can exist in the Capital Wasteland,' Hudson said. 'This whole place is under the protection of the Brotherhood of Steel, right? And they conduct regular patrols of all the places these groups might operate out of? So how, then, can any hostile group manage to survive in the face of such security? Are they coming in from outside the region? If so, why? Aren't there any settlements nearer to their home base that can be used as targets?

'And why do the attacks stop the moment there's a Knight or Paladin outside? It's not like they won't still try to attack. It's either that or go hungry and starve, right?'

'I guess?' the guy said. 'I don't really think about it too much.'

'Sure you do,' Hudson said before turning to address everyone. 'You all do. I bet it's constantly gnawing away in the back of your mind. How can all these groups still survive against the might of the all powerful Brotherhood?

'The simple answer is they can't. My guess is they send these raiders and mercenaries against groups that refuse their help until they back down and grovel at their feet, or get wiped out to the last so that another group, one more _willing_ to listen, can move in to work the land or scavenge for the materials the Brotherhood needs.'

Nobody spoke. Everybody just looked down with abject dismay at hearing the words Hudson was speaking and knowing he was speaking the truth.

'But what can we do?' the guy said. 'They're the freaking _Brotherhood_ , and they'll send those groups against us if we tell them to do one, and you guys won't be around forever to help fend them off. You said so yourself. A month or so. That's it.'

'It depends on how hard you fight when they come knocking,' Hudson said. 'Put enough of a dent in their numbers and those 'raiders' will eventually back down, and if enough people say they don't want Brotherhood support they'll have too many places to deal with to make it worthwhile.'

The guy looked at Hudson as though he were crazy, which may well be true considering he had volunteered to travel into a parallel dimension in nothing but a Pelican dropship and some ancient alien technology that hadn't been properly perfected, and said, 'Say again?'

'If too many people stand up to them, there's nothing much the Brotherhood can do,' Hudson said. 'They can't possibly browbeat that many settlements at once with a limited amount of mercs and raiders.'

The guy continued to look at Hudson with a quizzical expression as though trying to figure out his actual motives for a full solid minute, letting the rain and wind be the only sound in the shack, before coming out with, 'Are you really a mercenary group?'

'Yes,' Hudson said. 'We're just not overly fond of how the Brotherhood can operate at times, especially when they're acting like bullies who are forcing people to pay tribute.'

The guy nodded in deep thought and leant back, contemplating the offer being put forward by Hudson and what it might mean for the people of Arefu who were discussing it amongst themselves in hushed tones or silent debates done via facial expressions. By and large it seemed to be a positive reaction and Hudson was almost certain they'd accept the offer of being taught the ways of self defence and self reliance.

Then the ground shook.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1018 Hours, May 26, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

At first Hudson thought it was high winds slamming into the shack, or maybe a massive crack of thunder splitting their air, but the sounds outside didn't match up with that theory. There was no ear splitting howl of wind or rumbling peal preceding either, and neither was there a blinding flash of lightning to cause the thunder, suggesting something else was responsible for the shaking ground.

When it happened a second time only a few moments later, the Spartan was quick to realise something was physically striking the highway Arefu sat on and came up with two possible situations for what was doing it, neither of which were particularly encouraging. The first was that a super mutant behemoth had taken it upon itself to begin hitting the concrete columns holding the highway up, which posed a very serious threat because heavy weapons were an absolute must to take down creatures that big, and the second was that somebody had a missile launcher to hand and was actively targeting the columns with high explosive warheads.

This was probably the better of the two scenarios, if only because responding to such a threat didn't necessitate having a missile launcher of his own, but it still meant somebody was attacking the settlement with the intent of utterly destroying it and they probably weren't alone in their endeavour.

'Out,' Hudson said to Jex and Williams, running for the door without a moment's hesitation even before a third missile came into contact with one of the support beams. 'We've got company.'

His two Marines followed in short order, rifles up and ready, and they emerged from the shack into a downpour they had rarely encountered before. The rain was lashing down with such force that it sounded like machinegun fire as it bounced off the metal walls of the shacks and was so heavy that visibility was down to maybe a hundred metres at a push, everything beyond that range hidden behind an opaque veil. From below and to the north came a flash of light, muted by distance and rain, and something bright streaked across the land and river to slam into the support column directly beneath Hudson's feet.

He braced as the ground titled ever so slightly, something that got his full attention considering he was standing on a hardy piece of civil engineering wrought from steel and concrete. If it was doing anything other than remaining perfectly still, something wasn't right with it, and as he watched two more flares of illumination appeared from either side of the first source, suggesting at least three launchers, and their missiles ran straight and true for the same support column. One missed, one didn't, and the list increased.

Ahead of him Hudson saw the road begin to fracture and tear from the new stresses being placed upon it, and in a flash he understood the enemy's game plan. Their intent wasn't to destroy Arefu outright because if it was, their attention would be on one of the supports closer to the access ramp to close off that avenue of escape and access, and from there eradicate the remaining columns without fear of being swamped by settlers trying to defend their home.

Attacking the column at the very back suggested they wanted to drive people out and down the ramp, no doubt into a veritable meat grinder of full auto weaponry and explosive devices, so that a new group could come and inhabit what remained of Arefu and hopefully be a little more docile in their support of the Brotherhood.

A solid plan given the terrain and potential hostiles inside the settlement but with just one fatal flaw: they didn't know the full capabilities of the troops currently inside Arefu.

'Jex, trade!' Hudson called out, throwing his MA5K at the Marine and getting an M392 back. 'Punch out to the top of the ramp and start spotting targets, and deter any from coming up the ramp. Williams, get the people out here with their guns. We're going to need some backup when we tackle whoever's out there.'

'On it, skipper,' Williams said, rushing back into the shack as Jex ran forwards to the ramp, dropping to his stomach and sliding the last few feet through shallow puddles as he trained his carbine out into the countryside surrounding Arefu.

Hudson hefted his newly acquired weapon and aimed it to where the three missile launchers were, switching to thermals to cut through the rain and maybe double or triple his visible range. The weapons and their operators showed up clearly as bright orange shapes amid an expanse of dark blue with the launchers in particular being easy to spot, their barrels almost white hot from firing so many missiles as the support columns.

He centred the crosshairs over the closest operator and fired, striking them just as another missile left the tube. The new angle at launch caused it to fall short and impact the dirt a scant dozen yards away to throw up white hot debris that obscured the scope briefly, allowing the other two to unload a salvo that impacted and made the tilting ever worse. A keen groan started coming from somewhere below the Spartan as steel beams were bent and stressed far beyond anything they were reasonably expected to cope with.

Trying to ignore it all, Hudson fired at the second operator but a small and sudden jolt as the road shifted threw his aim off just enough to miss, making him swear loudly and try again, this time with much greater success and he watched with satisfaction as the orange outline of a human slumped to the ground and didn't move.

The third operator, either unaware of the deaths of their two comrades or determined to carry on regardless, loosed off one final missile that crossed the distance in apparent slow motion and disappeared somewhere below, and for a long second Hudson hoped it had missed but the shaking of the ground beneath his feet said otherwise. He responded by shooting the final hostile dead but the damage was already done and as he swept for other threats the road continued to tilt and list and screech and howl as metal was torn apart and concrete shattered.

What the Great War had started two-hundred years ago was finished by three people with missile launchers and Hudson scarcely had time to shout for Williams to get clear even as he leapt beyond the growing crack in the road. He span and looked for his staff sergeant and saw her running across the asphalt with the settlers right behind her, half of them carrying a mixture of submachine guns and bolt action rifles and the other half carrying nothing, and they began running and jumping across the ever widening crack just as fast as their legs could carry them.

About a third of them never made it.

Hudson reached out to grab one of the settlers as he leapt across the gaping chasm but he was just an inch or two out of reach and the man could only let out a panicked yelp as he began his final plummet, joining the others in being buried beneath a huge chunk of highway as it toppled over to slam into the ground and send up huge plumes of dirt as the two shacks built there just disintegrated into nothing but shards of wood and metal.

The Spartan could only stare at his outstretched and empty hand for a moment from shock, only to jolt himself back to reality and focus back on the task at hand by wheeling around to look at the residents of Arefu that had made it across in time. They too bore expressions of shock and disbelief from the travesty they had just witnessed, but lacking the training and experience of the UNSC troops they didn't come out of their stupor as quickly. Fewer still actually carried guns, the majority of them in the hands of the fallen settlers, and only one of the survivors was a rifle, a bolt action. The rest were pistols and submachine guns, hardly adequate for engaging an entrenched enemy that likely had assault weapons.

Williams came forward, much to Hudson's relief, and said, 'What now, skipper?'

'We take the fight to them,' Hudson said. 'It's our only play right now, other than surrendering.'

'They'll know we'll come out swinging,' Williams said.

'So we swing harder,' Hudson said. 'Harder than they're expecting, and by a huge margin, too. Jex, report.'

' _Got maybe forty or so hostiles in various positions_ ,' Jex radioed. ' _At our ten, eleven, and two o'clock positions, no more than one-five-zero metres out. Call it a 10-15-15 split between them all.'_

'Which one has the terrain on their side the most?' Hudson asked.

' _That would be two o'clock. Elevation and concealment in equal measure, but suitable flanking route on their southeast side.'_

'Acknowledged,' Hudson said.

Inwardly he winced at the situation. They were outnumbered by at least five to one and going up against an enemy that had prepared their positions against assault, and with a pitiful arsenal to send against them being wielded by people who probably lacked the skills and temperament necessary to use them to full effect. If it weren't so vital they put on a good show here and now, Hudson might have called for a tactical withdrawal from the area. That, and their only avenue of escape other than the ramp being covered by dozens of weapons was to jump over the side into the river below, and given the distances involved it wouldn't be much different from jumping onto solid ground.

If they could somehow neutralise the advantage the opposing force held over them, or just mitigate it somehow, the fight might become more balanced in their favour. The best way to do that was probably for Hudson to close and engage the enemy by himself, where his superior speed and reflexes would give him a clear edge. All he needed to do was cross over 150 metres of open ground whilst under fire from forty or more gunmen. Simple.

He gritted his teeth at the realisation this was exactly what he needed to do and began walking towards Jex at the ramp.

'How many do you think you can tackle with ease?' he asked the staff sergeant.

'Maybe a dozen,' Jex said. 'So long as they don't reposition when I start firing on them, that is.'

'If I could guarantee that?' Hudson said.

'Then maybe a dozen, skipper,' Jex said. 'But there's only one sure fire way I know that you can employ that would guarantee their attention being focused on anything but me, and you're not crazy enough to do it.'

'Crazy? No,' Hudson said. 'Desperate? Yes. We've got to break their lines before they call for reinforcements or acquire more missile launchers to throw at us, and to show the people here that what we've got to teach them is worth risking pissing the Brotherhood off. Otherwise we might as well hand in our rifles and call it a day. So, can I rely on your sharpshooting skills?'

'Do I have much of a choice?' Jex said, accepting his DMR back.

'Not really,' Hudson said before calling his other Marine forward.

'Yeah, skipper?' she said when present.

'You're joining Jex in providing fire support,' Hudson said. 'He's sniping and you're suppressing whilst I close and engage the guys at two o'clock. If you can get the settlers to help, do so, but I don't know if we can rely on them in their current state.'

Williams nodded and dropped to one knee beside the prone Jex, shouldering her carbine, as Hudson looked down the ramp and picked out the best route to take. It didn't look overly good as numerous rocks and tree stumps covered the land, creating numerous winding paths that, more often than not, were also home to newly created streams and rivulets that came from overflowing puddles of water though, thankfully, the ground was too dry and too hard for mud to be forming. Half a ton of weight was hard to stop normally to say nothing of trying it on something as slippery as mud.

Grimacing once more, Hudson drew his weapon and set off.

 **Spartan Hudson, somewhere in the State of Maryland. 1033 Hours, May 26, 2553 (Military Calendar)**

Bullets pinged off his shields and made them shimmer as Hudson ran, throwing up great plumes of water when he streaked through a puddle more than half a foot deep, but ultimately they were little more than a mild distraction to the Spartan as he closed in on his objective of a slope southeast of the bad guys holed up at the two o'clock position. Behind him Jex and Williams were hard at work reducing the total number of enemies as best they could, taking out maybe half of the dozen Jex had claimed he could handle, and trying to rally the settlers of Arefu into joining their efforts but few were willing to.

Either they were still in shock at seeing a third of their number fall to their deaths, or were too afraid at openly challenging the Brotherhood anymore than they already had done by simply entertaining Hudson and his group to hear what they had to say. If that were the case then convincing them to accept their tutoring in the ways of self-defence and self-reliance was going to be that much harder to do.

 _Perfect_ , Hudson thought darkly as he vaulted another rock and landed in a puddle beyond it. Water flew up into the air from the impact, and then from him accelerating away, before reverting back to a torrential mass constantly being churned up by the rain which hadn't let up yet, and showed no signs of stopping any time soon.

The Spartan idly wondered how many towns would become flooded as a result of the downpour, particularly Megaton as it was built within the crater caused by a crashing bomber, and how the various subway systems were going to cope. Whatever drainage systems they had were probably long since broken, or clogged with trash and gunk from a lack of care, so any water streaming into them was going to be staying there for a good long while.

He then discarded that thought as the dirt before him was churned up by an explosion, showering him with debris and a spray of water, and Hudson powered through it by leaping across the newly formed crater that even now was rapidly filling up.

' _Came from ahead and to the left of you_ ,' Williams radioed without being asked. ' _Same location you're heading to._ '

'Acknowledged,' Hudson said.

A few seconds later he arrived at the foot of the slope and, looking up, saw five men carrying assault rifles looking down at him. They were all partially hidden behind rocks and wearing jet black armour akin to what Talon Company had worn but without the white claw, and they all opened up with fully automatic blasts upon seeing the Spartan who responded not by ducking into cover, as was probably the expectation, but charging straight for them as he returned fire.

The men, taken aback by the brazenness, hesitated for a long second and stayed their trigger fingers in turn. This proved fatal for them as Hudson dropped two in an instant and shot the others when they turned their backs in an attempt to flee, stepping past their corpses to advance on the others who were quick to orientate their weapons onto the Spartan even as he raised his own and the two sides began trading fire.

They put up a spirited defence but lacking heavy weapons, barring a missile launcher that Hudson rendered inoperable by shredding the main body with a long burst, they simply couldn't inflict enough damage to put the Spartan down for good, or even slow him all that much, and began dropping in ones and twos until none were left standing in this stretch of land. Disheartened by the failures of the others the men and women across from Hudson began executing a tactical retreat from the area, those with heavy weapons hanging behind slightly to provide some semblance of cover to let the others escape.

'Let them go,' Hudson radioed, a new plan forming in his head even as he ran towards the fleeing hostiles. 'Maintain suppressive fire until they're beyond visual range, then follow on thermals at a two-hundred metre distance. With any luck they'll lead us back to their base of operations in the area.'

Two green lights flashed onto the Spartan's HUD as they acknowledged the order and together, they kept firing upon the retreating hostiles until they were swallowed up by the rain and lost to sight. Thermals still had them, around twenty orange blobs strung out in a staggered line that weaved and bobbed as they followed the terrain, and Hudson waved for Jex and Williams to give pursuit to them all as he turned back towards Arefu, climbing up the ramp as they ran downwards.

But when Hudson reached the top and walked up to the people of Arefu, they didn't look upon him with any kind of welcoming expression, or even a neutral one. They were looking at him with a growing amount of utter hatred at the misery brought about simply by listening to him speak rather than supporting the Brotherhood's position he wasn't welcome.

One of them scooped down and hefted a chunk of rubble and threw it at Hudson who let it clang off his armour without responding, casting his gaze across them all and seeing no allies, or even possible converts to his side. They all hated him and seemed to be one wrong word away from rushing him with the intent of lynching the Spartan.

So he just walked away.


End file.
